How do I save my group project and my mark?

Question

I'm concerned about two members in my Marketing Simulation school group project this year. Let's call them Member A and Member B, respectively, in this. Besides me, there are 5 members in this group.

Member A:

• Informed the group that he would be away for 10-12 days for personal reasons, but ended up being away for 3 whole weeks, and he didn't respond to any of my messages (or my groupmates' messages).

• He wanted everyone to give each other 100% on the peer review regardless of what happened.

• I noticed he used generative AI in his presentation, and he even admitted to using AI when I asked him. He claimed he edited the text but the editing history shows he didn't.

Member B:

• Asked me if this project is about the marketing simulator or about the textbook (which, in short, the title of the assignment was "Marketing Simulator Presentation")
• Apologized for not putting in enough work after I expressed my concerns, only to miss the rough draft deadline (that was agreed upon by all members) anyways.
• Claimed that they put their part of their work in the document and slides, but no editing history of them doing so existed.
• They ended up doing their work later but made a whole new ppt presentation even though a link dedicated to the ppt was sent to the whole group.
• The teacher even said to them when he saw our slides and went to their section, "I don't know what the heck you're talking about."

I'm mainly worried because a group project because this is worth at least 20%, and if one member gets caught using AI, the whole group may get a 0. It's just a bit stressful because it's too late to kick the members out of this project, and I have not one but two members to worry about. The majority of the grade will be marked as a group, not individually. I'm also scared that if I were to tell the teacher, my group mates would give me a bad mark on the peer review. What should I do?

Answer 1

Talk to a teaching assistant or the lecturer, and explain the situation to them. Make sure to include that you are worried about your group mates giving you a punitive mark on the peer review, and that one group member used genAI without the agreement of the group. I would focus on the situation with A, who seems like they are actively breaking the rules of the assessment. B sounds like a fairly standard group project situation, there will always be someone who doesn't pull their weight. If someone in your group is cheating on a group assignment, your safest option is to come clean as soon as possible so you're not implicated in academic misconduct.

Answer 2

Informed the group that he would be away for 10-12 days for personal reasons, but ended up being away for 3 whole weeks, and he didn't respond to any of my messages (or my groupmates' messages).

This can be excused under extenuating circumstances, like a death in the family for example (although the broader context makes me seriously doubt this).

He wanted everyone to give each other 100% on the peer review regardless of what happened.

This isn't a healthy attitude but unfortunately more common than you think, especially in undergrad. People tend to be quite tribalistic.

I noticed he used generative AI in his presentation, and he even admitted to using AI when I asked him. He claimed he edited the text but the editing history shows he didn't.

This is just inexcusable. Not because he used GenAI, but the fact that he deliberately lied about it to (presumably) cover his ass. This shows that A does not have your best interest in mind.

Asked me if this project is about the marketing simulator or about the textbook (which, in short, the title of the assignment was "Marketing Simulator Presentation")

Is honestly not that big of an issue. People sometimes have brain farts and B might not be a native english speaker.

Apologized for not putting in enough work after I expressed my concerns, only to miss the rough draft deadline (that was agreed upon by all members) anyways.

Again, could be excused by certain extenuating circumstances.

Claimed that they put their part of their work in the document and slides, but no editing history of them doing so existed.

This is very much getting into the "suspicious" territory. I would clarify what they meant by "putting their part of the work" in.

They ended up doing their work later but made a whole new ppt presentation even though a link dedicated to the ppt was sent to the whole group.

I feel like this shows that they have some intention to genuinely help out with the project, at the very bare minimum.

The teacher even said to them when he saw our slides and went to their section, "I don't know what the heck you're talking about."

No comment for this

Conclusion:

Member A is maliciously (a better phrasing might be deliberately) trying to fail your group, most likely out of pure selfishness and laziness. I would definitely report his behaviour to the teaching team privately.

Member B is a classic case of "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". It seems to me that he/she is at least somewhat genuinely trying to help out with the project, but falls short out of sheer incompetence. Unfortunately incompetence is something that you'd have to deal with, whether it is in Academia or in the industry. However, my personal stance is that I can excuse incompetence as long as it isn't deliberate. This is more of a gray area but personally I wouldn't take any punitive action towards B (although obviously you have much more context around B, maybe he/she is also just pretending to help but secretly slacking off). Although like I said, given what you've written, I don't think B is being malicious.

Answer 3

Group dynamics are always hard to deal with.

It sounds like these two teammates are not pulling their weight or producing quality work. Using GenAI is usually fine (check your institution's policy) as long as the final work is good and citations properly given. It also sounds like you are being graded on a group effort -- a harder situation. I would personally (1) tell these two people your concerns on their lack of quality contribution in a polite way (I personally use NVC. You don't know what other people might be going through, so a "polite" phrasing is good), and (2) if they are still like not contributing quality work, seek advice from either a TA or a professor (use your hunch to decide who will be more helpful) and ask their opinion on this situation -- feel free to leave out sensitive parts¹ and just phrase it as the fact that these two people are not contributing as they should and you are rightfully worried about your grades.

The other things I can't personally be too helpful. Colluding in giving perfect score might be a bit too "fake" but giving everyone a 90% score might work well grade-wise, depending on how compromised the process is. Moralistically, you should give the score as agreed upon by the grading criterion, but the world is not black-and-white. Similarly, if you know members A and B's personalities on a deeper level there might be other angles of attack. Heck, the "right" thing to do might be to just bite the bullet and do your part in the group project as best as you could and hope for grade inflation to still give you an A.

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_{1: Of course, if at any point your teammate is using GenAI against policy (e.g., it is plagiarism) and you must report them... Well, report them to the TA or professor. Some institutions just say that if you use GenAI you are responsible for its output.}