I'm a graduate student who just finished up a big project in Excel and handed
it in. A few days later I get an e-mail from my professor regarding
potential cheating. My professor looked at the statistics tab in the
properties box and I ended up having the same 'Created' Date as another girl
in my class. The date is "Monday, October 14, 1996 6:33:28 PM".

First of all we didn't cheat, I barely know this girl. Second, I didn't own
my laptop or have Excel in 1996. For some reason we both ended up with a
file that somehow got this bogus 1996 Date and Time. If anyone has any
advice, please let me know. As it stands now we need to prove our innocence
to pass the class.

Thanks!

The "Created" date is the date the file was originally created and
first saved. If you're using a template file that was distributed (by
the instructor himself?) to the class then everyone using that file
will have the same "Created" date. Does anyone else that same Created
datestamp?

The "Modified" and "Last Accessed" dates, also on the statistics tab,
should be more or less unique to all students. I say "more or less"
because it would not be too far a stretch to see everyone completing
their work the night before it is due, but the timestamp portion is
more likely unique.

Dave,

Great questions. We were given some files from our professor, but they were
all created in 2004. In addition, this other student and I were the only
one's who had this weird 1996 date and time. It appears that Modified and
Accessed dates were changed to the time when my professor opened up the
files, so they aren't unique to us.

I'm curious if this could be some kind of virus or macro that modified our
Created date without us knowing. Or possibly that Excel has some issue that
caused the faulty date.

Ross

"Dave O" wrote:

The "Created" date is the date the file was originally created and
first saved. If you're using a template file that was distributed (by
the instructor himself?) to the class then everyone using that file
will have the same "Created" date. Does anyone else that same Created
datestamp?

The "Modified" and "Last Accessed" dates, also on the statistics tab,
should be more or less unique to all students. I say "more or less"
because it would not be too far a stretch to see everyone completing
their work the night before it is due, but the timestamp portion is
more likely unique.

I did a cursory search on the Microsoft Knowledge Base for the phrase
"created Monday October 14" and got no hits. I looked he
http://support.microsoft.com/search/...2&ast=3&mode=a
.... but you may want to search more extensively.

Did you submit your project via email, or by recorded media? If it was
a CD ROM, for instance, the properties should be static and
unchangeable. Also, even it the submission was via email, the email
attachment may be saved on his drive in its "as received" state, so you
may be able to show unique Modified and Accessed dates. I use MS
Outlook, for instance, and email attachments are stored in this arcane
drive:
C:\Documents and Settings\MyName\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\OLK5F

Another idea: this may be an MS Outlook-specific idea- if he forwards
the *original* email from his inbox to another person the Accessed and
Modified dates may be preserved.

I'm a little torqued that you're "guilty until proven innocent" instead
of the other way around. There has to be a forensic way to explain
this- any ideas from anyone else?

What email system are the various parties using? The instructor
probably has the school's system, which may have characteristics /
features / bugs that are different than MS Outlook, and you may be able
to glean important details from the different systems.

I once shared my book.xlt file with another person. It showed that I was the
author of every workbook that she created.

Is there a chance that you used the same workbook to start your work--maybe a
sample workbook created by the instructor or from the textbook (if it came with
files)--instead of starting from a brand new file?





Ross wrote:

I'm a graduate student who just finished up a big project in Excel and handed
it in. A few days later I get an e-mail from my professor regarding
potential cheating. My professor looked at the statistics tab in the
properties box and I ended up having the same 'Created' Date as another girl
in my class. The date is "Monday, October 14, 1996 6:33:28 PM".

First of all we didn't cheat, I barely know this girl. Second, I didn't own
my laptop or have Excel in 1996. For some reason we both ended up with a
file that somehow got this bogus 1996 Date and Time. If anyone has any
advice, please let me know. As it stands now we need to prove our innocence
to pass the class.

Thanks!

--

Dave Peterson