GroupMe has been causing quite a controversy around campus this past 2017-2018 semester.

The assistant director at the Student Advocacy and Accountability office Chelsie Bickel talks about her side of the issue.

The office of Student Advocacy and Accountability says that the use of GroupMes have started to take over the old fashioned way of students cheating on exams and quizzes.

“Students that are communicating how they would have communicated maybe in the past, by whispering to their friends and saying, hey what is the answer to this,” Bickel said.

When it comes to students being brought up for academic misconduct, there is never just one specific reason why.

“We see a lot of different things,” Bickel said. “There is no black or white answer. We say a lot of times it depends.”

Each case is different. Although, most students do not know what is and is not acceptable to have conversations about in their GroupMes. They only know the obvious, do not cheat or send attendance codes to classmates.

“Instead of needing to be in the class,” Bickel said. “They do not have to be anymore. They could be in New Orleans. We have seen students sharing codes for the class that day.”

The Daily Reveille posted an article in late march, when a student an a few of her classmates were brought up into the Student Advocacy and Accountability offices to discuss an attempt at cheating within their GroupMe.

“If we were actually cheating, punish us for it,” Taylor Pisanie said. “Whatever, but nobody cheated”

It is cases like Pisanie’s that confuse students because there is no set list of what can and cannot be said online.

Bickel says that GroupMes are fine as far as asking for missed notes from other classmates, that is if professors are okay with it.

If students do want to file reports, they can do so by heading to the Student Advocacy and Accountability website.