Student Faces Expulsion for Facebook Study Group

Pickens brings news that a student at Ryerson University is facing 147 counts of academic misconduct after helping to run a chemistry study group through Facebook. School officials have declined to comment, but students are claiming that it is simply a valid studying technique in the information age. Quoting: "Avenir, 18, faces an expulsion hearing Tuesday before the engineering faculty appeals committee. If he loses that appeal, he can take his case to the university's senate. The incident has sent shock waves through student ranks, says Kim Neale, 26, the student union's advocacy co-ordinator, who will represent Avenir at the hearing. 'That's the worst part; it's creating this culture of fear, where if I post a question about physics homework on my friend's wall (a Facebook bulletin board) and ask if anyone has any ideas how to approach this - and my prof sees this, am I cheating?' said Neale, who has used Facebook study groups herself."

Comments

I shall answer the question!

[GearType2]

Yes. It is cheating. No one ever gets help from anyone in the real world, and certainly not when science is involved.

Re:I shall answer the question!

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn your arrogance Albert Einstein! Not everybody sees how obvious it is to tie Maxwellian electrodynamics, Galilean coordinate systems, and inertial mass into meaning that your GPS accuracy will be degraded without a clock adjustment kludge. Btw, this sounds like a typical homework problem in a general relativity class. The exam problem would ask for the general solution when you replace the Earth with a binary black hole system.

Re:I shall answer the question!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please add an English class to your current class load.

Thank you.
-- The Mgmt.

Re:I shall answer the question!

[0100010001010011]

And unless the grading was based on 'originality' or 'uniqueness' I would often give my Matlab programs to friends. Given my unique coding style and understanding of how to actually use the language (for loop=bad) no one would have come up with code like mine. Professors figured it out after the second homework assignment and derivative works would always get 10% less.

And heck, in subsequent semesters I'd have "friends" (mostly loose acquaintances that would use anyone they had to pass) ask me to do their homework in exchange for stuff (money, food, alcohol). If I had time and it looked like fun I'd do it for my own merit to hone my skills. Plus since the only time these people gave me the time of day is when *they* needed something for *their* homework I would have a bit of schadenfreude about the whole situation. I'd do the first few homework assignments (when my real classes had no homework) but then by time the hard stuff came out I "lost interest" and they'd end up failing because they had no concept on how anything actually worked.

Re:I shall answer the question!

[ArhcAngel]

I don't no how too do this facebook you speek of. could you just emale me the ansers.

Re:I shall answer the question!

[PhxBlue]

... except that Ryerson is in Toronto, Canada. Not the US.

So ... U.S.-Lite, then.

you should not have answered that question

[commodoresloat]

Sharing information like that is cheating. You will be receiving a letter from the Vice President for Student Affairs outlining charges of academic misconduct against you.

Re:you should not have answered that question

[joaommp]

The reason for his expulsion is for using facebook. He should no better. /. study groups is the way to go.

Re:you should not have answered that question

[VorpalRodent]

Somehow, I don't know that having a bunch of armchair omniscients looking at their problems would help. I have this sinking feeling that a majority of the students would get confused when, in response to their calculus question (or what have you), the official response from Ask Slashdot is: "In Soviet Russia, calculus takes the limit of you!".

Re:you should not have answered that question

[joaommp]

1) I'm not a native English speaker
2) I'm dyslexic. I can see the error now that you pointed it out, but I wouldn't notice it for myself ever
3) This is /.! If the old saying is "in Rome, act like a Roman", than I have to do it CmdrTaco's style.

Re:you should not have answered that question

[ThanatosMinor]

I'm really amused that if you type "fhgwqads" into Google, it asks "Did you mean: fhqwhgads."

Yes, of course I did! Thank you Google for correcting my nonsense string of characters.

Re:you should not have answered that question

[networkBoy]

[oblig troll response]
1) tough, this is an English language board, if you want to be here learn the language!
2) whiner
3) touche
[/oblig troll response]

1) Seriously though, what is your native tongue b/c I simply assumed a typo. Not too bad at all.
2) so am I. It takes some work, but you can train your brain to double check your most common errors. Mine is appending the last char of one word to the beginning of the next: so thi sis how I'd type if I didn' tcheck more often.
3) touche.

-nB

Re:you should not have answered that question

[VorpalRodent]

Okay, so I stand corrected - Slashdot does work for answering some questions. Namely, those questions which would be suitable for inclusion in "Trivial Pursuit: Nightmare Edition".

"Arts & Entertainment question: Please spell fhqwhgads." I'm assuming the questions are horrible for not just the person answering, but the person asking.

I've updated my sig accordingly, however.

definition of idiocy

[Bazzargh]

From TFA:
Ryerson's academic misconduct policy, which is being updated, defines it as "any deliberate activity to gain academic advantage"

Great, no more turning up for class then!

Re:Umbrage at self plagiarism

[TheLink]

Did Dolores cite the previous professor in her assignment question? She should actually have been sacked if she didn't do that, since she was implicitly passing off someone else's work as hers. And she being in a position of authority should be setting a better example.

By doing what he did - crossing out the prev professor's name, he's actually calling her out on it. Which not surprisingly she didn't take very well.

As for the marks, I don't see why he should get a zero at all. She might give him a different grade, but a zero is very different from 95% for the same question. If the assignment isn't too ambiguous then one of the professor is grading poorly ;).

Re:147 offences?

[prod-you]

H.e ac_tua,lly cop-ie_d t-he sp_ell-ing fr>om som-ew>here elure he c,hanges thi[ngs a b-it so that it's not pla-gi[arism.

Re:147 offences?

[Wandering Wombat]

I recognize that writing style...

Stop e-mailing me! My penis is big enough!!!!!