We have both chemistry and academic dishonesty in the news these days. Seems that a chemistry course at Ryerson prompted some students to create an online exchange of solutions for course quizzes and labs. When the faculty found out the host student was charged with academic dishonesty.
In the classic rationalization of this generation the main argument by the student is that since this is no different from students exchanging answers in the library they are blameless. It just doesn't sink in that when you pass in work that you claim is your own you are expected to have done it on your own. Yes, other students may be cheating by other means but you were caught.
Being open about cheating does not absolve you from cheating ... one might argue that zebras learn to run from lions not because they all get caught but because every now and then one of them gets caught.
1 comment:
We had tutorial groups in first year chem in which we were supposed to work on a set of questions together, but submit separate solutions for marking weren't we? I can't quite remember if we had to hand in one copy per group or if we each had to hand in one individually--it has been a while. I'm sure at some point we were sending help back and forth via email. Is that much different from doing it on Facebook?
I seem to remember loosing my group several times (and my lab partners) as they dropped the course. So I don't really remember a whole lot of working within my group anyway!
I'm not 100% sure if what was going on the Facebook group was cheating. I'm sure there were a few users who did. But from everything I've read or heard, the student charged by Ryerson hadn't actually posted any answers himself on the group forum. It all seemed a little sketchy to me I guess.
I think with the increases in technology (and perhaps the decrease in morals in society?) I think universities and other educational institutions are really going to have to "keep up" with technology and inform their faculty and administration in order to prevent cheating. Which is really sad to be honest.
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