Today’s National Post has an editorial about the Ryerson Facebook affair [For background, you can refer to a Toronto Star story, and Michael Geist’s blog].
As the Post title suggests: Ryerson’s ‘Facebook scandal’ isn’t about Facebook, it’s about cheating.
The technological angle is causing everyone to overlook the vastly more meaningful development symbolized by the affair. Apparently, in the year 2008, professors find it necessary to specify that homework problems in an engineering class should be solved by the student, rather than copied from a brighter classmate.
In this case, the prof told students to do their work independently. An internet based study group, is a study group. Sounds to me like a violation of the instructions.
Read the Post editorial. I’m working on another piece for tomorrow about so-called digital loopholes.
Update [March 18, 8:30 pm]
The National Post is reporting that the student has not been expelled, but has received a zero out of 10 for the portion of the class mark associated with independent assignments. He will also be required to attend a course on academic integrity.
As James Norrie, director of Ryerson’s school of information technology management said “It is incredible to us that our desire to protect academic integrity, even if it occurs in a technology-based setting, would lead some to the conclusion that we are behind the curve.”
Technorati Tags:
National Post, Facebook, Ryerson, digital loophole