A freshman has been hit with 147 academic charges for organizing and running an online study network at Ryerson University.
Student faces Facebook consequences – TheStar.com: Study groups may be a virtual trademark of the Ivory Tower – but a virtual study group has been slammed as cheating by Ryerson University.
First-year student Chris Avenir is fighting charges of academic misconduct for helping run an online chemistry study group via Facebook last term, where 146 classmates swapped tips on homework questions that counted for 10 per cent of their mark.
The computer engineering student has been charged with one count of academic misconduct for helping run the group – called Dungeons/Mastering Chemistry Solutions after the popular Ryerson basement study room engineering students dub The Dungeon – and another 146 counts, one for each classmate who used the site.Avenir, 18, faces an expulsion hearing Tuesday before the engineering faculty appeals committee.
Could the faculty staff be a bigger bunch of Luddites? How embarrassing. If you are looking to study engineering, you might be better served by going to another University.
…And people wonder why the number of Engineering undergrads every year isn’t keeping up with demand.
There is no getting away from teh Stupid … its contagious. [sigh]
I fail to see how this would be cheating? The dynamics are the same as in real life, and this sounds like how we were doing things at university of Phoenix. Swap out facebook for a newsgroup and you have the same structure.
Thinker –
Last time I attended a study group, we worked on problems together AS A GROUP. We didn’t just trade answers on homework. If all they did was trade answers, then it WAS cheating and they are getting what they deserve.
Daniel has a point. How much was talk, how much was 1)a 2)c 3)b
# 4 Daniel said:
Thinker –
Last time I attended a study group, we worked on problems together AS A GROUP. We didn’t just trade answers on homework. If all they did was trade answers, then it WAS cheating and they are getting what they deserve.
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Last line of the full article:
Still, said Neale, “no one did post a full final solution. It was more the back and forth that you get in any study group.”
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A paragraph in the full article reads:
Ryerson’s academic misconduct policy, which is being updated, defines it as “any deliberate activity to gain academic advantage, including actions that have a negative effect on the integrity of the learning environment.”
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Any deliberate activity to gain academic advantage? Sounds to me like Ryerson students had better not get caught going to class, reading the textbooks or having had previous courses in their subjects, or out they go!
Homework for a grade is dumb. If you know how to do it you’re wasting your time. If you don’t you need help from someone to learn the material which you aren’t allowed to have so you wind up getting all stressed out over something you don’t know how to do and no resource to find out how other than to try to get 10 min at some prof’s office hours at some obscure time on a place campus that takes you an hour to get to.
It’s only 10% of the mark. The ones who cheat (just copy somebody else’s answer) but don’t understand the material will have a final grade of 10 (or less) out of 100. So I don’t at all understand the cause of Ryerson’s upset. It was just another way of communicating, or conceptual blockbusting. In the real world, as an Engineer, Avenir (which means “Future” in at least one language) would get extra credit for his initiative.
This isn’t cheating the same way bittorrent and emule are not used for copyright violations.
heaven forbid they should function via collaboration and actually learn something.
The only reason homework counts for 10% of their grade is to make sure they do the homework.
Students have held group study sessions for a long time. I participated in study groups in the late 60s, and they work. It’s not cheating.
The general idea is to get the concepts of a subject together in each student’s mind, so they know what they’re doing when it comes down to a quiz, exam or final.
Obviously those running this school are not very well educated.
I get more and more frustrated with “the stupid” that shows up with any level of public or private education. It’s bad enough to see students “placed into alternative education programs” for designing 3D models of places they are familiar with (schools, homes, neighborhoods, public spaces), and now it’s even worse when a student is facing expulsion for actually doing his work and going beyond to help other people learn his subject. I’m always glad to get a little help with my stuff, and if he’s got copies of transcripts of discussions and the like I don’t see why the school would ever go through with it.
Are schools getting so crowded that they are looking for every single loophole they can use to remove a student? This seems to be the only real explanation behind the stupid over-reactions.
Heh, So now students can’t even study together…ridiculous.
You folks are all starting from the mistaken impression that public schools are meant to educate.
http://www.spinninglobe.net/againstschool.htm
Yeah but everyone is missing this line from the article “While Neale admits the professor stipulated the online homework questions were to be done independently,” This work was supposed to be done alone. Working in a library study group would have been wrong as well.
John: If people want privacy on their social networking sites, they should consider posting legal terms of service to that effect. See http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2007/11/privacy-advocates-such-as-nyu-professor.html The idea is not legal advice for anyone, just something to think about. –Ben