Dozens Suspended In Harvard University Cheat Scandal 264
johnsnails writes "Around 60 students at Harvard University have been suspended and others disciplined in a mass cheating scandal at the elite college, the campus newspaper reports. The Harvard Crimson quoted an email from Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean Michael Smith that said more than half of the cases heard by administrators in the scandal, which erupted last year, had resulted in suspension orders. 'After professor Matthew B. Platt reported suspicious similarities on a handful of take-home exams in his spring course Government 1310: “Introduction to Congress,” the College launched an investigation that eventually expanded to involve almost half of the 279 students enrolled in the course.'"
My Theory (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is a joke, but it's more than relevant.
I am guessing the people getting off in this case are getting off more for lack of evidence rather than exoneration. Plus logic dictates that with this number of people it's not the first time it ever happened.
What upsets me most personally about the United States is that we've developed a culture where doing the right thing is NEVER rewarded and doing the WRONG thing usually is. We've got a political culture right now where a politician MUST be a huxster or they can't compete. The US Government does suck at every level, but it's an outgrowth of the sickness of the culture itself. Nice guys don't finish last; nice guys don't finish AT ALL.
Re:My Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
What upsets me most personally about the United States is that we've developed a culture where doing the right thing is NEVER rewarded and doing the WRONG thing usually is. We've got a political culture right now where a politician MUST be a huxster or they can't compete.
What on earth makes you think that's unique to the US?
Re:My Theory (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
What on earth makes you think that's unique to the US?
People tend to think that everything like this is unique to it. Well once people get out into the real world and see what happens, they quickly realize that cheating happens everywhere. Or that a politician must be a huckster to compete, I'm guessing they've never seen european politics or canadian, or hell japanese. From my own neck of the woods, take a look at Dalton McGuinty probably one of the biggest liars, cheats and scum suckers since Bob Rae. And one that's successfully ensured that Ontario wil
Re:My Theory (Score:4, Interesting)
Great example of the level of discourse in the USA today. Let me point out the pattern:
Thinking person: In the USA this problem is evident to me.
Knee-jerk apologist: You said the rest of the world is better than the USA! You are a bad person and not a patriot! We can ignore your point and concentrate on how evil the rest of the world is because they all have this problem at least as bad!
Thinking person: Wait, what? I never mentioned any other country because I live in the USA and am not prepared to comment on other cultures I only know from hearsay!
KJ apologist: Fuck you traitor! Go live in Sweden/Iraq/Russia/Somalia since you like Socialism/Arabs/Commies/pickaninnies so much!
Thinking person: .......
Re: (Score:2)
You think it's only relevant to your planet? Or to people with knees?
Re: (Score:3)
Take Silvana Koch-Mehrin , the german EU politician who had plagiarised her graduating thesis (having before waved on about how she manages being a mother, an active politician and an academician at the same time, well, amusing how that turned out to be) , and was kicked out of function for it.... only to be appointed on the EU commission for research and industry.
Re:My Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
we've developed a culture where doing the right thing is NEVER rewarded and doing the WRONG thing usually is.
I'd argue that it's not so much about right versus wrong, it's more about the end result trumping the method of getting there. A "win" is considered vindication of the means. If the means are "right" then that's great, but if the means are "wrong", it's too often considered OK to look the other way. The more rewarding the win, the more likely people are to overlook the wrong, especially if those who *should* be doing the looking stand to benefit from the win in the first place. Look at Lance Armstrong. Do you think *nobody* in his inner circle knew he was doping? Sure they did. But they also knew fame and fortune would come from Armstrong's wins, and they could bask in that to considerable benefit. Thus they became complicit.
In a perfect world, there would be ample benefits and public glorification of the person who came forward to expose cheating. Instead, they typically have everything to lose and very, very little to gain by doing so. Hence the culture of cheating prospers in sports, business, academia...pretty much anywhere the stakes are high enough.
Re:My Theory (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the problems with Capitalism is it can force Managers to compete with each other to screw everyone; their employee's, customers and ultimately the environment; the best. The classic method of constraining it has always been to involve government. For example; The Red Triangle fire resulted in 120 Americans dieing on the 8th floor of a high-rise factory floor from a fire that started on the 10th; the bosses surmised they only needed a few buckets of water in the corner, locked their workers in, and weren't around to let them out when the fire started. The result of this was a "general strike" and hundreds of laborers unionizing overnight as everyone came to the realization they were putting up with something they aught not to put up with.
The lesson here is, if management and labor don't work together, neither of them will be employed for long. The pride of management blinds them to the obvious dangers they place labor, and ultimately themselves, at, and labor if they follow management down the rabbit hole will lead inevitably and invariably to injury.
I work at a company run by lawyers, they're always fighting over the slightest nuance of communication instead of looking at what's really going on; a infrastructure built with products promised to last decades but because foreigners cut corners as there was no real repricussion for doing so, thus it is in decay. An entire generation retiring oblivious to the peril management has placed their pensions in. Men Dieing or getting injured in the field from too many hours of overtime worked. Managers putting in 16hr shifts because their managers need to feel like the lower managers are "with them". Accountants oblivious to all of the above.
Re: (Score:3)
One of the problems with Capitalism is it can force Managers to compete with each other to screw everyone; their employee's, customers and ultimately the environment; the best. The classic method of constraining it has always been to involve government.
The result of this was a "general strike" and hundreds of laborers unionizing overnight as everyone came to the realization they were putting up with something they aught not to put up with.
This isn't an example of government intervention; this is an example of capitalism working. Unionisation isn't anti-capitalistic; governmental backing of unionisation (making use of strikebreakers illegal, etc) may be anti-capitalist, but no more than governmental backing of companies (LLCs, laws promulgated via lobbyists, etc).
Re:My Theory (Score:5, Informative)
Look at Lance Armstrong. Do you think *nobody* in his inner circle knew he was doping? Sure they did. But they also knew fame and fortune would come from Armstrong's wins, and they could bask in that to considerable benefit.
They were also harassed, threatened, and sued every time they did accuse him of doping. There have been a lot of people who knew, who accused him of it over the last 10 years.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
+1 your comment.
It's nothing new and certainly ingrained. In high school back in the 80's, pretty much everyone in my courses cheated (NMB Senior, Class of 88). I never once cheated, ever, and it was galling to watch them walk away week after week with A's and 100's even though I and many others knew that it was unearned. Even simple things -- an art class self portrait (the cheaters asked the more artistic folks to draw for them), a take home physics exam (Mr. Sturgelewski's class) was copied from person t
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe we should have some reward for people who rat on cheaters. All the students seem to know who the cheaters are, but nobody wants to be a rat.
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe we should have some reward for people who rat on cheaters. All the students seem to know who the cheaters are, but nobody wants to be a rat.
Considering the number of students involved in cheating, it would be like ratting out your local thug gang.
Someone is bound to take revenge.
This whole tendency to suffer any injustice and never speak up will probably be the downfall of civilization.
Re: (Score:2)
+1 your comment.
It's nothing new and certainly ingrained. In high school back in the 80's, pretty much everyone in my courses cheated (NMB Senior, Class of 88). I never once cheated, ever, and it was galling to watch them walk away week after week with A's and 100's even though I and many others knew that it was unearned.
+1 to you as well. I graduated high school in '89 and college in '93 -- I saw lots of cheating at both institutions.
Re: (Score:2)
I know this is a joke, but it's more than relevant.
I am guessing the people getting off in this case are getting off more for lack of evidence rather than exoneration. Plus logic dictates that with this number of people it's not the first time it ever happened.
What upsets me most personally about the United States is that we've developed a culture where doing the right thing is NEVER rewarded and doing the WRONG thing usually is. We've got a political culture right now where a politician MUST be a huxster or they can't compete. The US Government does suck at every level, but it's an outgrowth of the sickness of the culture itself. Nice guys don't finish last; nice guys don't finish AT ALL.
The heartening result is that Harvard takes cheating seriously. They suspended about 60 students over it and a bunch of others are on probation -- probably because they couldn't prove those students cheated.
Re: (Score:2)
If Harvard took such things seriously, the students would be out of the University and barred from readmission, and a mark on their transcript indicating such.
Re:My Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
The heartening result is that Harvard takes cheating seriously. They suspended about 60 students over it and a bunch of others are on probation -- probably because they couldn't prove those students cheated.
You call that 'serious'?
Harvard admits somewhere in the range of 5-6 percent of those who apply. Even if we assume that the bottom 75% or so of the applicant pool are just deluded optimists, Harvard could replace its entire class two or three times over with people who would love to have been admitted. If they were remotely serious, they could have banhammered everyone involved in cheating and called it a day. Instead they are being 'temporarily asked to leave'. That's crazy lenient given how trivial it would be to replace them, and how meaningful a degree from Harvard is supposed to be.
Re:My Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
offtopic shameless repuglican TROLL.
Re: (Score:2)
I think it's a little more subtle than that. It's not that we reward wrong behavior. We simply don't really punish people in these kinds of situations enough to deter doing wrong. And, that punishment scale is based on how much money or influence your parents might have.
Here in Kansas, we had a group of high school kids get busted a few years ago buying essays. The teacher flunked them all, but the parents went to the school board and pressured them into giving the kids passing grades. You can be assur
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What upsets me is that in many top program there is a forced curve. There is nothing worse than studying your ass off and being pushed down a letter grade due to a crop of cheaters. It seems that some grades should be restated for previously classes these cheaters completed.
Take Home Exam. What could possibly go wrong? (Score:3)
Plus logic dictates that with this number of people it's not the first time it ever happened.
When you realize that the discovery was made because of:
similarities on a handful of take-home exams in his spring course Government 1310
you have to wonder if this professor was clueless, idealistic, or engaged in an "honesty" research project of some kind.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd not be so sure. When I was on college, I certainly saw students cheating or having enormous opportunity to cheat because of poor care of exam notes and problem set answers by the teaching assistants. On several occasions, I saw the notes lying around and deliberately did my work an entirely different way, or with additional work deliberately added to demonstrate my actual knowledge of the subject rather than simply copying those answers, and notified the professor that the answers had been left lying ou
Re: (Score:3)
In fact, it's never been different. The notion that morally flawed deeds get rewarded while good behaviour doesn't is so old, that many religions incorporated concepts about a later reward for the good ones and a later punishment for the evil in their systems of faith, because reality seems not fair enough to us. And through the times you find cultural pessimists who complain and whine how bad it has become. It's one of the recurring the
Re: (Score:3)
It's cute that you want to make this a liberal-only issue. Clearly, god-fearing conservatives never have a faulty moral compass. I just get confused when I read stories about clergy exposed for molesting children and their churches spending all their effort on covering it up rather than fixing the problem. I get more confused when I read about gerrymandering, affairs, and kickbacks related to Republicans.
Let me help you: cheating and lying are endemic to our culture as a whole. It is not limited to par
Re: (Score:2)
So long as it's not "malevolent, it's ok. Just ask Joe Biden. He's done ok.......
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/18/us/biden-admits-plagiarism-in-school-but-says-it-was-not-malevolent.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm [nytimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
That's where they went wrong ... if they already had political pull they would have been part of the group who were caught but didn't get suspensions.
Re: (Score:2)
Platt reported suspicious similarities on a handful of take-home exams in his spring course Government 1310: “Introduction to Congress,”
They shouldn't worry. When they cheat in Congress, the press won't report it even if they are incompetent enough to get caught. Rules aren't for rulers.
Re: (Score:2)
Why did Romney lose? People don't like the privileged much any more (Bush got a pass because he could play such an endearing moron).
It's much better to groom someone who came from relatively humble backgrounds ... they will be hungrier for money and less likely to suddenly go FDR/JFK on you as well.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Most Students Don't Cheat (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No kidding. Cheating on a take-home is like killing puppies or something.
Now thats FUNNY (Score:5, Funny)
Ha-vahd students too lazy and ignorant to get a clue about Congress. What will they do when Daddy buys them a seat? (besides feel up the interns?)
Re: (Score:2)
With respect, I don't think has to do with east coast liberal elites. I think this has to do with culture and elitism in general.
Look at our leadership in congress for instance in both houses. I doesn't take much effort to figure out the meritocracy isn't in play.
Re: (Score:2)
Damn, we had to learn the functions of Congress back in grade school and Middle school. By high school I had two classmates intern.
Makes me question the quality of school today. The quality of Congress hasn't been a question in my lifetime.
Re: (Score:2)
Damn, we had to learn the functions of Congress back in grade school and Middle school. By high school I had two classmates intern. Makes me question the quality of school today. The quality of Congress hasn't been a question in my lifetime.
It could be the college course is a little more detailed.
Re: (Score:2)
Inconceivable! Surely their math classes go into no more details on "numbers" than the ones I took in 5th grade!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I work for Harvard (but not FAS, another school), but getting into FAS is no longer strictly about having money or connections. A large portion of the students that go there get some sort of financial aid, and a family making less than $120k gets a massive amount of financial aid if they are accepted.
FAS Financial Aid Office [harvard.edu]
Re: (Score:2)
Ummm. (Score:2)
First reaction was... (Score:2, Insightful)
No wonder.. take home exams... open book exams.. what do you expect from the low level colleges... Then it actually hit me that this is Harvard.edu we are talking about.
I guess I was just lucky to finish eng and comp sci from a place where they filtered us from 450 in first year to 5 with diplomas in fourth, without ANY of this open-book-exam nonsense.
Then again, I'm unemployed at the time and work is tough to find... if I only went for a bigger name university... had the grades, didn't have the money... ah
Re:First reaction was... (Score:5, Interesting)
The funny thing (sad thing?) is how lenient the punishments were. Suspension? At my school, a lowly community college, cheating usually results in expulsion, with a 0 in the course being the minimum consequence.
Re:First reaction was... (Score:5, Insightful)
well sure your community college does not have an outraged parent who just cut a $45k check to answer to; there is little in the way of them having standards.
Re:First reaction was... (Score:4, Informative)
The case is more complicated than simply copying.
1) This class used to be easy, but this year it was very hard
2) A lot of athletes etc. got in the class so that they could pass. When it was tough they panicked
3) They went to teaching assistants with questions about "interpreting" the exam. The TA's helped them freely. This was considered cheating in exams and resulted in suspensions.
4) Some cheated outright. Many resulted in expulsions with grades for the year getting set to zero and tuition for the year being refunded.
5) A few students copied class notes, but did not copy in the exam. This was looked at on a case by case basis and resulted in punishments (some expelled, some not)
Re: (Score:2)
WTF is wrong with copying class notes?! It was a normal part of growing up: you missed class, you had to copy class notes, at least for material that was not sufficiently covered in the textbook. I did it in the elementary school, as early as 2nd grade, for crying out loud. I do not mean copying the notes into the exam, of course.
Re: (Score:2)
on 2 Harvard is not a sports school (Score:2)
on 2 Harvard is not a sports school or a place with people who are there for sports to take easy classes.
Re: (Score:2)
It occurred to me after writing this that a community college also has extra incentive to take a hard stance against cheating. If the college is known for allowing students get away with cheating, it might hurt prospective transfers to 4-year colleges.
well real IT is open book and not based on crammin (Score:2)
well real IT is open book and not based on cramming for tests.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You realise that open-book exams give a lecturer a much better insight of what students have actually learned, rather than what they remember from cramming the night before? Open-book exams test insights. If you can recite of the books and other literature for a course, but you never actually did anything, you're highly likely to fail it. Fact memorisation exams don't show that you learned something: rather, they show you memorised things: most students tend to forget those things before the next semester i
Re: (Score:3)
In the UK we call them 'papers' and 'essays'. Write 1250 words describing X.
Exams on the other hand are exams. They don't ask you to repeat facts, they require you to demonstrate understanding of the underlying concepts, approaches and context. No memorisation needed, just a clear understanding of the subject.
Re:First reaction was... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I was admitted, no, I didn't go, and that is why. I needed security, something my parents were ill equipped to provide. Why do you think high expectations Asian father macros (just making a point, I'm not from an Asian or immigrant family) all talk about med school or engineering? Reliable professional jobs are a great place for middle class kids with brains; they can send their own kids to the big name schools. Was it the right choice? I aimed too low for my lesser school and although I made about $5000 a year from excess scholarship money and graduated without debt I probably could have gotten the same offer from a better place, so it is hard to tell - but then I make mid six figures in an area with a very low cost of living, so it's not like I ended up in the gutter.
Re: (Score:3)
Hmm (Score:2)
Anyone else looked at the syllabus for some of these classes? I was looking at one online and I thought it looked more like it belonged in a community college.
I was surprised at the poor quality of classes I found, maybe actually being there in the class with the other 150 students makes a difference.
Re: (Score:3)
There's this weird worship for big American universities. In some cases they have excellent research and graduate programs but undergrad is undergrad. Except where you're paying big bucks and being a "legacy" makes some kind of difference. In that case there's a profit motive to make things easy enough for everybody to do well.
Re: (Score:3)
Or maybe - just possibly - the Ivy League universities continually turn out entrepreneurs because they teach the same material better.
Maybe it's because they foster a culture of exploration and innovation.
Maybe it's because people are surrounded by other self-starters.
Maybe it's because people wanting to kick something new off have access to wealthy individuals.
It's definitely there, I suspect it's a combination of several of those things, and I know that if I were seeking a university in the US I'd be appl
Cheating in Congress (Score:5, Funny)
The course is Government 1310: "Introduction to Congress" so I'd think cheating was required.
Fight Fiercely, Harvard! (Score:2, Offtopic)
Fight fiercely, Harvard, Fight, fight, fight!
Demonstrate to them our skill.
Albeit they possess the might,
Nonetheless we have the will.
How we shall celebrate our victory,
We shall invite the whole team up for tea (how jolly!)
Hurl that spheroid down the field, and Fight, fight, fight!
Fight fiercely, Harvard,
Fight, fight, fight!
Impress them with our prowess, do!
Oh, fellows, do not let the crimson down,
Be of stout heart and thru.
Come on, chaps, fight for Harvard's glorious name,
Won't it be peachy if we win the g
Vice Presidential material! (Score:3)
For sure!
Not Surprising (Score:5, Interesting)
I was talking to a 15 year old kid, how his grades suffered because he decided he wasn't going to cheat anymore. He admitted he previously cheated freely and openly, without shame. Why? EVERYONE cheated, so there was no shame in it. But he realized that cheating was shortsighted and sooner or later, he would have to actually learn stuff. So he resolved to stop cheating, but at the cost of his previous good grades.
HE is an encouraging example. But the rest of his classmates aren't. Cheating is the norm and our future is screwed.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm also amazed at how differently one can define cheating, depending on where you went to school. In most of former Eastern Europe, for example, cheating in exams meant that you had small pieces of paper with painstakingly "minimized" equations, facts, etc. These things were memory aids, and should not have been forbidden in the first place because unless you knew how to apply them, you wouldn't pass anyway. Verbatim copying of papers made little sense unless the teacher was very unobservant. Some things,
Re: (Score:2)
and with loads of theroy as well that does not rea (Score:2)
and with loads of theroy as well that does not really help you in a real job. Also lot's of the fluff and filler classes are loaded with BS busy-work.
Being Caught is Unforgivable (Score:3)
Clearly these esteemed institutions have failed in their mission.
Re: (Score:2)
Harvard, Yale, etc. are the source of our leaders -- our elites
And what has it gotten us? The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and a president who doesn't know his asshole from his elbow when it comes to economics. You'd be hard pressed to find less common sense or street smarts anywhere else than in the average Harvard class.
Details would be nice... (Score:4, Interesting)
One has to be careful with these sorts of stories. A few years back at my University, newspapers went wild when an entire engineering ethics class was given an F for cheating. The reality of it? The professor gave no instructions on how to properly cite things, gave an assignment, and 'taught everyone a lesson' by failing them all for plagiarism when they didn't follow the exact standards of reference citing. These were engineers- imagine how little they know or care about perfection in reference citing. Nobody was intending to cheat the system, except for a professor who wanted to make some kind of point, by ruining the GPAs of a hundred students.
In this situation, I see certain similarities- one professor, one paper, and few details.
Re:Details would be nice... (Score:5, Informative)
Here are some details, from the various Harvard Crimson articles on the topic.
The cheating occurred on a take-home exam. The instructions for the exam stated that it was open notes, open book, and open Internet, but that talking to other people about the exam was forbidden.
The exam was a different format from previous years' final exams. Previously, the only questions on the exams had been essay questions. This year, short-answer questions were added to the exam. Many students thought the short-answer questions were more difficult than the essay questions. In fact, in previous years, the course had been widely regarded as easy, in part because of the easy exams, but students in the year in question did not find it to be easy. Many students also thought the short-answer questions were confusing. During the period in which the exam was assigned, the professor sent out at least one email providing clarification on the short-answer questions due to mass confusion.
After the exams were collected, it was noted that many students turned in very similar answers on the short-answer questions. This suggested that they had collaborated, in violation of the exam instructions.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Take-home exams? (Score:4, Interesting)
Graduate studies in North America make use of oral exams as well.
Nobody wants to listen to a thousand undergrads stumble over the same questions.
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder why oral exams aren't more common in the United States. When I came to do graduate studies in Europe, they really forced me to shape up and learn my stuff. Not only do they make cheating impossible, but when you are judged on how fast you provide the answer, you also internalize it better.
Because giving hundreds of students oral exams would require effort on the part of the faculty and they believe that they have better things to do.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you trying to say this is Harvard's "fault"? Surely I'm misunderstanding somehow.
To me, this is just a happy filtering out of some students who needed a lesson in humility and ethics. No fault to Harvard or the professor.
need hands on based tests and they test unstaindin (Score:2)
need hands on based tests and they test understanding of a topic and not just cramming.
Re: (Score:2)
Here in France in the Classes Préparatoires [wikipedia.org], students have written and oral exams. And it's not only in humanities, but in science as well.
Basically, you've got 20 minutes to prepare 3 exercises on paper, and 20 minutes to present them. And unless you're really good, you don't have the time to prepare everything before going to the black board, so you have improvise.
It works quite well, people are rarely contesting the grades, and there's no way a student can cheat.
Re:Oral exams? (Score:3)
You wonder why oral exams are not more common?
There were 279 students enrolled in this class. Assuming a ten minute oral exam for each and two minutes to grade the answers it takes 55.8 hours to examine all the students. This oral exam would take at least two weeks in a 14 week semester, and ten minutes is really too little time to judge the work of an entire semester.
If anyone other than the professor grades the student, then they cry foul.
If the exams begin in the fifth week of the 14 week semester, the s
Re: (Score:2)
If you think you know something and can't give reasonable "exam grade" presentation about it without much preparation, you don't really know it. That's my humble opinion. Once I consider to know something, I probably don't have the best ways researched to teach it, but presenting it well enough off the bat to convince a professor that I know it -- meh. Of course some people can't present anything so that's an obstacle on its own, whether they know the subject cold or not.
Re: (Score:2)
HD video recording and editing equipment is cheap these days. You can go to a large grocery store and buy everything you need -- a photo camera and some editing software, memory cards, perhaps an external hard drive or two. It's a trivially solved problem to record exams from even multiple angles. 20 years ago things were different, of course. These days, there's no excuse.
On a take-home exam? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well said!
Make some calls Daddy! (Score:2, Funny)
I see some new, expensive buildings being donated to Harvard in the near future.
When cultural icons like Lance Armstrong .... (Score:5, Insightful)
They Cheated on a Take-Home Exam (Score:3)
Who could have seen that coming?
Their real error (Score:5, Funny)
Getting caught!
Our colleges are supposed to train our students to succeed in society. That means, we need to wee out the ones who are going to get caught when they cheat. The truly successful in our society are the ones who cheat without getting caught.
I feel so cynical today.
Take the course on line (Score:3)
You can take this course on line. [harvard.edu] for $1,045 to $2000. At Harvard, I would have expected "Introduction to Congress" to be taught by an former member of Congress, but it's just an ordinary instructor.
I'm watching the first video. At the beginning, the instructor says that all you need to know to start this course is that "Congress" exists. At 00:02:35, he's talking about the proposal to change the rules to prevent filibusters from stalling Congress (only the Senate, actually). The speaker is interesting, but if you don't already know a lot about American politics and the structure of Congress, you'll be totally lost.
Grade inflation (Score:2)
With rampant grade inflation going on these days, especially at the high end schools (where everyone is above average, remember) these kids didn't have to cheat - just wait for the As to roll in.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree whole heartedly. When I went to college and to a post secondary institute, you needed 90%+ to get an A, 80-89% got you a B. Now in the institute, I work at,
an 80% will get you an A-, then 85% gets you an A and 90%+ gets you an A+. This marking scheme makes it almost impossible to get a poor grade.
CTTDBRATO (Score:4, Funny)
What were the exam instructions/restrictions? (Score:2)
What were the instructions to the students taking the exam? What restrictions or instructions?
I'm a teacher in a post secondary institute and all of my quizzes are take-home 'do it at your own time" within a specificed time frame using whatever resources you can find. It allows me to create exams that test more than just rote memorization and I can ask higher level questions that require an understanding of the problem. If you can't understand the question then you won't even know what to google for. I also
Chinese? (Score:2)
I wonder how many of the suspended students were from China. Having papers ghost-written, paying for smuggled out exam questions and answers, is quite an industry there. Then, they come to the US, and expect to be able to game the system the same way. In some schools, that works. Harvard is a bit more careful, generally, though this take-home exam was a really bad idea.
Isn't cheating one of the labs for that course? (Score:2)
n/t
Re:Completely Predictable (Score:5, Insightful)
Even fewer are those who will continue to do this after the first few times. After a while you begin to believe that the real rules and the stated ones have little to do with each other, and anyone following the stated rules isn't any more moral or ethical or in any way better; they're just a chump.
Re: (Score:2)
And how on Earth do you benefit from cheating in school? Aren't you there to learn or something?
Re: (Score:2)
And how on Earth do you benefit from cheating in school? Aren't you there to learn or something?
Collaborative learning (study groups) are ok, and often encouraged, sometimes required. Why: Because they AID learning.
Since the test was a take-home exam, I could see where the students, in the absence of any instructions to the contrary might thing it was just another co-op assignment. (Not saying there wasn't any warning not to work in groups, just tossing that out there).
In any university testing environment the test answers are usually stored under lock and key. Even most essay style exams have bulle
Re: (Score:2)
You're there to get a good job too and with the job market as it is you can't really afford being filtered out on GPA.