Ryerson Student faces Facebook consequences

[jason]

Originally published at Lemmingworks. You can comment here or there.

The Toronto Star reports: Freshman hit with 147 academic charges for online study network at Ryerson University. “Ryerson student Chris Avenir is facing expulsion for taking part in a Facebook study group for one of his engineering courses.” I don’t think it appropriate for me to comment on this because I don’t know the facts, and it seems that some comments in the article do not match what I know about university policies, so there may be some confusion or spin going on. It is an unfortunate situation for all involved, but I hope that this clarifies what is and is not appropriate to do online. Perhaps nothing was done wrong, and I hope they find out soon one way or another.

Comments

Freshman Charges

[nwilliam.livejournal.com]

To think that there is no "paper trail," one would be fooling themselves. That being said, one has no control over what another would post to them, and if it crossed the line of academic integrity would someone saying thank you be a term of endearment or acknowledgment that a line was crossed. 147 charges may not translate into 147 counts but this does acknowledge that action and clarification is needed on Ryersons end. Blanket policies need to keep up with the tech.

Re: Freshman Charges

[complicittheory.livejournal.com]

good questions. I can't wait to see how it plays out.

[moons-mistress.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't this fall under the 'doing work as a group but then submitting it as an individual' in the part of the plagiarism/academic misconduct section? I've recently had to inform a professor about my suspicion of this happening when a group member decided not to do their part of a group project after I had sent everything but her part to all of the group members. The group decided (as it could according to the assignment) that we would continue as a group and complete her part, but that she was no longer part of the group. Or it would probably fall under the 'copying another person's answers to individually assigned projects' section.

It's a hard thing to prove when it's just word of mouth help on assignments, but when you can look up a section of an answer and find it online not credited to the person who submitted the answer, then it should be considered academic misconduct.

Frankly, I'm surprised that wall posts and other advertisements for selling books that include the sale (or just 'giving) old quizzes to the buyer are not considered academic misconduct and prosecuted as such. Or is it that the people who enforce these things just haven't noticed them?

[complicittheory.livejournal.com]

good questions. I'm not commenting until I hear all the details, but I'm sure when it all comes out, I'll have an opinion.

[ashenseraph.livejournal.com]

I forwarded that along to our ISS guys, thinking it might be the start of an interesting discussion here.

[complicittheory.livejournal.com]

Ya, it is all on how you do it, whether it becomes a problem or not.

Jason,

[vincygyal.livejournal.com]

I herd about this and I was actually surprised at the fact that the school was charging him for trying to further his education to a familiar tool he knows. Discussions further ones education, so why not do them? Maybe a better solution would be to have created a discussion board on blackboard within your course and approval of the teacher instead of on Facebook.

Re: Jason,

[complicittheory.livejournal.com]

Ya. I don't know the issues. I really feel I don't have all the information to know what's really going on.

[perpetualstroll.livejournal.com]

I've heard bits and parts of this, but I remember coordinating a giant study group via email for one of my courses. Then again, it was studying for a test, rather than stuff we were handing in for an assignment. On the exam, 15 out of 50 definitions were going to be asked, so 25 people pitched in 2 definitions each to share the workload.

[complicittheory.livejournal.com]

ya. I wonder if that would count as an academic integrity issue now.

[perpetualstroll.livejournal.com]

Might also depend on the prof. My prof found out about it and shrugged his shoulders-- seemed like a more efficient use of resources. :D