200 Students Admit Cheating After Professor's Online Rant 693
Over 200 University of Central Florida students admitted to cheating on a midterm exam after their professor figured out at least a third of his class had cheated. In a lecture posted on YouTube, Professor Richard Quinn told the students that he had done a statistical analysis of the grades and was using other methods to identify the cheats, but instead of turning the list over to the university authorities he offered the following deal: "I don't want to have to explain to your parents why you didn't graduate, so I went to the Dean and I made a deal. The deal is you can either wait it out and hope that we don't identify you, or you can identify yourself to your lab instructor and you can complete the rest of the course and the grade you get in the course is the grade you earned in the course."
Re:Wow. (Score:1, Informative)
The midterm grades were all tossed out for everyone.
Re:Ethics aside... How? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wow. (Score:1, Informative)
Well actually it depends upon your university. At my university, the syllabus is a contract between the instructor and the student. If your syllabus contains a course outline or calendar a student may force the instructor to follow that calendar to the letter. Therefore if the syllabus contains a calendar stating when the test was and then there was a second test that was not on the syllabus, the student could go to the student body council (the student body pays to have a lawyer available for all students free of individual charge) and force the instructor to not give the test.
No decent universities? (Score:2, Informative)
But perhaps you misunderstand what the syllabus states at most schools that require syllabi. The required elements are usually (a) how the grade will be assessed, (b) any policies that might affect the grade (e.g. attendance policies), (c) legal boilerplate from the university about honesty and disability policies, (d) office hours and contact information for the instructor. There is usually a line stating something to the effect that the schedule of what material will be covered when is subject to change at the discretion of the professor.
And, personally, I find having a schedule of what content will be covered when to be extremely useful.
Re:Prof is a compleat idiot (Score:1, Informative)
I think it is likely the prof was pressured not to turn them over. My wife was a T.A. and found that 3 people cheated on assignments. It was a programing 101 course. The assignments handed in by 3 student were the same. The same errors, the same comments, the small white space. Everything. This happened on one assignment and my wife turned it over to the head TA and they "talked to the students" The very same thing happened on the next assignment. This time she went to the prof. The prof refused to turn it over to the Dean or ethics people. He claimed there wasn't enough evidence and it wasn't worth it. After that she didn't enough check anymore if people cheated.
On using canned tests. The guy had over 600 students. That's not a class. It's an assembly line.
Having schools using a canned test would also mean a degree from school X would be a lot like a degree from school Y. And that piece of paper seems to be what schools are in the business of doing now a days.