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Do you guys think the punishment fits the crime?

P

PhaZe

Platinum Member
A friend of mine in engineering has a hearing with the college to determine if he violated the academic honesty policy.

A professor found his site where he stored old course material. There were old labs and a solutions manual for the course that the professor teaches. The material is from 2007. (I guess the labs don't change)

The professor reported it to the department and stated that he may have violated code:

Any other conduct which a reasonable person in the same or similar circumstances would recognize as dishonest or improper in an academic setting.
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The department recommended suspension for one semester and there will be a hearing where two faculty members and three students will decide whether he is guilty or not. They also decide on the punishment.

It sucks because I've talked to the guy a few times and he seems like a humble guy who probably used bad judgment.

I was trying to think of some counter arguments to maybe help his situation. I don't think he advertised or encouraged people to look at his stuff, perhaps Google picked it up.

Thoughts?

cliffs
-- this isn't long , just read, it's important.
 
If you left enough of a papertrail that something like this could happen, then yes, you deserve to be punished.
 
Originally posted by: PhaZe
I was trying to think of some counter arguments to maybe help his situation.
Click to expand...

Why doesn't he start with what his motivation was for putting the materials on the web?

If he intended to help people cheat, then any college worth attending would punish him severely.

Edit: I just noticed you mentioned he had a solutions manual. Yeah he's boned.
 
The thing is, a lot of courses provide you with old exams and solutions to past assignments, so sometimes it is hard to distinguish what should be saved and what shouldn't.
 
Don't most schools already have 'test/notes banks" where you can see notes from lectures and previous test given by most professor?
 
Originally posted by: RKS
Don't most schools already have 'test/notes banks" where you can see notes from lectures and previous test given by most professor?
Click to expand...


Yeah a lot of courses do. What's worse it that there are other students who have more organized material that is still online but the students have graduated.
 
If it's an honest oversight have him explain his motivations, and reiterate that he put it up for personal reference only in case his comp crashed, he needed to access it from another comp, etc.

But if he had a solutions manual he's probably in over his neck 🙁

Minimum he could have done is password-protected FTP access.
 
Originally posted by: PhaZe
A friend of mine in engineering has a hearing with the college to determine if he violated the academic honesty policy.

A professor found his site where he stored old course material. There were old labs and a solutions manual for the course that the professor teaches. The material is from 2007. (I guess the labs don't change)

The professor reported it to the department and stated that he may have violated code:

Any other conduct which a reasonable person in the same or similar circumstances would recognize as dishonest or improper in an academic setting.
Click to expand...

The department recommended suspension for one semester and there will be a hearing where two faculty members and three students will decide whether he is guilty or not. They also decide on the punishment.

It sucks because I've talked to the guy a few times and he seems like a humble guy who probably used bad judgment.

I was trying to think of some counter arguments to maybe help his situation. I don't think he advertised or encouraged people to look at his stuff, perhaps Google picked it up.

Thoughts?

cliffs
-- this isn't long , just read, it's important.
Click to expand...

Ya, they better suspend every single fraternity and sorority on campus. We had a teacher like this also for one class. he changed one question every year for his exams and the homework had different numbers. Oddly, I scored over 80% on all the tests.
 
Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004

Ya, they better suspend every single fraternity and sorority on campus. We had a teacher like this also for one class. he changed one question every year for his exams and the homework had different numbers. Oddly, I scored over 80% on all the tests.
Click to expand...

Are you implying that because cheating is so widespread, colleges should just ignore it?
 
Originally posted by: mugs
Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004

Ya, they better suspend every single fraternity and sorority on campus. We had a teacher like this also for one class. he changed one question every year for his exams and the homework had different numbers. Oddly, I scored over 80% on all the tests.
Click to expand...

Are you implying that because cheating is so widespread, colleges should just ignore it?
Click to expand...

I know the solutions manual was a bad idea, but the having old labs is questionable.

Like others have said, a lot of profs give students old material to study. One of my profs had every exam for the past ten years.

There's a list in the policy that has some recommendations for professors to discourage dishonesty and one of them is to have clearly written instructions regarding supplemental course assignments such as labs and projects.

If the prof knows they offer the same labs over and over and doesn't ever change them, they could have the students sign some agreement at the beginning of the semester or something.
 
Originally posted by: mugs
Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004

Ya, they better suspend every single fraternity and sorority on campus. We had a teacher like this also for one class. he changed one question every year for his exams and the homework had different numbers. Oddly, I scored over 80% on all the tests.
Click to expand...

Are you implying that because cheating is so widespread, colleges should just ignore it?
Click to expand...

I think it's sad to think that teachers should not be at fault if they don't make up new tests with each semester.
 
Originally posted by: PhaZe
Originally posted by: mugs
Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004

Ya, they better suspend every single fraternity and sorority on campus. We had a teacher like this also for one class. he changed one question every year for his exams and the homework had different numbers. Oddly, I scored over 80% on all the tests.
Click to expand...

Are you implying that because cheating is so widespread, colleges should just ignore it?
Click to expand...

I know the solutions manual was a bad idea, but the having old labs is questionable.

Like others have said, a lot of profs give students old material to study. One of my profs had every exam for the past ten years.

There's a list in the policy that has some recommendations for professors to discourage dishonesty and one of them is to have clearly written instructions regarding supplemental course assignments such as labs and projects.

If the prof knows they offer the same labs over and over and doesn't ever change them, they could have the students sign some agreement at the beginning of the semester or something.
Click to expand...
That's the thing, though, it's up to the professor. Just because some professors allow students to use old course materials for studying doesn't mean you can assume it's OK in all your classes. Your friend's probably screwed in this situation unfortunately.
 
I always believed professors and instructors should be smarter than their students. That includes leaving doors wide open for those with ulterior motives to peek into the inner sanctum. Clearly the prof should be sanctioned and fired, while the student should be given a medal for outing him for his ignorance. I won't go so far as to say the student should be granted an honorary degree, but he should at least be given free tuition, books and housing for the remainder of his college days.
 
Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004
Originally posted by: mugs
Originally posted by: IHateMyJob2004

Ya, they better suspend every single fraternity and sorority on campus. We had a teacher like this also for one class. he changed one question every year for his exams and the homework had different numbers. Oddly, I scored over 80% on all the tests.
Click to expand...

Are you implying that because cheating is so widespread, colleges should just ignore it?
Click to expand...

I think it's sad to think that teachers should not be at fault if they don't make up new tests with each semester.
Click to expand...

I agree to some extent. They make enough $, they can at least put some effort to discourage dishonesty.

 
Originally posted by: HappyPuppy
I always believed professors and instructors should be smarter than their students. That includes leaving doors wide open for those with ulterior motives to peek into the inner sanctum. Clearly the prof should be sanctioned and fired, while the student should be given a medal for outing him for his ignorance. I won't go so far as to say the student should be granted an honorary degree, but he should at least be given free tuition, books and housing for the remainder of his college days.
Click to expand...

lool.

I honestly think the student is partly at fault (for the solutions), but the recommendation of suspension is too harsh.

I thought suspension was handed out for students who blatantly cheat on exams or steal the answers from a professors office or something.
 
I mean, my assignments and work (i.e. my solutions, which are in this case nearly always correct) for the past 4.5 years (4 yrs undergrad, 1/2 grad), which is about 40 classes, is all 100% publicly available in my university web space.

I put my work there b/c then I can access it from any computer (university lab, my own laptop, my desktop, a friend's machine, etc), and it's extremely convenient to not have to do lame shit like email myself files constantly. I even expanded the use of my univ web space to allow my friends to upload files for when they wanted help debugging code, for example.

I think it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If people cheat off of me, that's not my problem. It's not like I'm broadcasting "hey look you can copy my answers!!!!!" to everyone that I see. Moreover, if you copy something w/o really understanding it, you'll get boned on the test and/or the grader should notice. If you learn the material and do well on exams, then 2 things: 1) the tests are too easy or 2) you learned the material => class served its purpose.

Someone who wants to cheat will find a way to do it. It's not like your friend's website is really empowering people to be naughty.

I mean if the prof wants to punish that kid, practically my entire lab should be suspended. We all keep old work/notes in folders on our shelves and/or in our desks. It'd be a trivial matter for one of us to stay late and go through the 'smart kid's' materials. So what, I should be required to burn all of my physical notes/homework solutions?

Students are not here to police other students. We are not the anti-cheating enforcers. We should not have to inconvenience ourselves b/c it makes it harder for -someone else- to cheat.

Now if your friend put the materials online w/the intent of sharing w/others... that's a different story entirely.

-Eric
 
What's the website like? Is it his filespace that gives him remote access to his work (discrete) or is it a site he created to help others cheat?
 
I agree eLui. Your post reminds me of the IEEE organization at my university. They attract new members by offering solutions and old course material to paid IEEE members. They always state this during their meetings for new members and they have several faculty members in there that never say anything about that.

My friend's site was just a directory. It had a folder with sub folders for each class. Nothing like a blog or an actual site with options or interface.
 
Originally posted by: dbk
What's the website like? Is it his filespace that gives him remote access to his work (discrete) or is it a site he created to help others cheat?
Click to expand...

I don't think it was to cheat, but perhaps to use as a reference. I am not sure how people found it unless a person was intent on finding old material and googled the course number and found it. It was just organized like how you'd organize your files on a flash drive or something. (I think the site was fullname.com/myfiles )

It wasn't like coursehero.com where they advertise the fact they have old thousands of old course files.

 
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