Fine line between study group and cheating
What does ‘online study group’ exactly mean?
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.
Well, I’ll say this much: in my years of grading upper division physics homework, the homework that looked most like each other (showing various evidences of cheating, to reveal just a few symptoms (since I need to keep a few aces in the sleeve when I grade again), intermediate steps look identical, and unusual choices of variable name is repeated) were of those who were “in a study group”.
I’m not saying everyone in a study group is a cheater, but I am saying that those in a study group has to take extraordinary precaution that they don’t cheat by accident (such as only discussing ideas together and keeping specific implementations secret from each other). Somehow, Facebook doesn’t seem to be a best place to do that.