March 19, 2008
Ryerson U. Won't Expel Student Over Facebook Study Group
The first-year engineering student who faced expulsion for maintaining a Facebook study group will be able to continue his studies at Ryerson University, in Toronto, according to the The Globe and Mail.
Chris Avenir faced 147 charges of academic misconduct after one of his professors found a Facebook group Mr. Avenir administered where engineering students could get homework help. It was stipulated in the professor’s course that students should work independently.
Mr. Avenir ran into trouble when he wrote on the group’s page that members should “discuss/post solutions.”
The case has stirred hot debate. Some have argued that the group was analogous to an in-person study group — merely a medium for collaboration. In some circles, Ryerson’s actions were branded as Luddite.
Others, however, said that Facebook was a mere distraction from the real issue: that Avenir broke the rules by establishing a place where students could get homework solutions.
Mr. Avenir didn’t totally escape punishment. A faculty committee ruled that he should get a zero for one assignment, as well as a disciplinary note in his file.—Hurley Goodall
Posted on Wednesday March 19, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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The Globe and Mail article doesn’t discuss it – but what I really wanted to know was whether the ridiculous language in the Ryerson academic integrity policy became an issue (“no deliberate activity to gain an academic advantage” or something to that effect). Technology only increases students’ abilities to collaborate. Are professors going to draw a line in the sand around “independent work,” and we will see more of these kinds of battles, or will they learn to create assignments expecting/encouraging students to work together outside of class?
— Jim Mar 19, 05:10 PM #
This is a problem that is growing in magnitude. The fact of the matter is that in organizations people collaborate more and more, so the terms of the classroom is growing increasingly unrealistic and out-of-touch. At the same time we have the mission to educate. I see both relevance and rigor at risk. We need to find new ways to teach. The old methods are becoming less effective.
— Jeff McNeill Mar 19, 05:36 PM #
In many cases, faculty members lose sight of their objective, which should be to help students learn. Instead, they get caught up in playing cop and creating increasingly unenforceable rules. Why not open the rules to study groups and embrace the technology and the solution, as long as it leads to student learning?
— Al Mar 19, 05:52 PM #
Part of the problem in sifting the evaluation paradigm is that the model to which most university classes are bound (and which fellowship organization, prospective employers, etc. are seemingly still wedded) asks primarily for individual, not group, evaluation. Whatever the practice post-graduation, the university is still being asked to determine who is worthy to be part of the collaborative team.
— another view Mar 20, 07:31 AM #
The comments are all right on. Anybody who thinks the classroom is the exclusive domain for learning needs some serious re-education himself. My library is bursting at the seams and humming along with electric activity all hours of the day and night. There are groups everywhere. What are they doing? Probably trying to figure out what the professor was trying to say and put the message back together in a way useful to them. The idea of a Facebook study group is innovative and creative. I hope the student gets some transfer offers from engineering schools that will appreciate the creativity. The essence of engineering is redundancy. What’s wrong with redundancy in engineering education?
— Philip J Tramdack Mar 20, 07:35 AM #
So typical. Students come up with a real-life, real-world way of dealing with the problem of learning, which just happens to involve technology, and of course the university jumps on it with both feet. Not just the administration, but part of the professoriat as well, which at least theoretically is supposed to have something to do with teaching students. In the real world, people working on problems talk to each other. I wonder where we’d have gotten if the Manhattan Project had required everyone involved to work independently.
Good heavens.
— Dan Kirklin Mar 20, 08:47 AM #
This luddite gives academics a bad name. Study groups have been common in Greek houses and elsewhere on campus for years.
— Stephen Mar 20, 09:08 AM #
There are group assignments and grades, and there are individual assignments and grades. Both are important for intellectual growth and an enlarged capacity to contribute. Problems of this sort persist when the rules of collaboration aren’t clear. The form of collaboration is not so important. Fuzzy academic integrity policies are a bane.
In any group, there’ll be the smart, driven ones who can thrive independently. There’ll also be a larger segment that makes modest contributions and is mostly carried along. I wonder sometimes how much group projects have contributed to grade inflation.
Beyond academe will be the Manhattan Projects and the common sales campaigns. These efforts require both collaboration as well as individual genius.
— wm Mar 20, 12:39 PM #
We are evading the real question here. Did the student commit (willfully and knowingly) an act of academic integrity violation? If the language of the assignment or policy was ambiguous, then that is where the issue lies. If the student knew what he was doing was wrong and still did it (although he is clearly capable of making competent, adult decisions), then the school should discipline him in accord with the established policy. I don’t see what the fuss is about: either he cheated or he didn’t.
— ct Mar 21, 07:13 AM #
Well congrats for not being expelled…
I understand the teacher didn’t want kids doing homework assignments together, but I still think that is wrong in itself. Isn’t the purpose of higher education to collaborate and learn? See what happens if you limit the interactivity of peers at a high-level research university…instantly it becomes not to research-oriented or as successful a place to learn as before.
Shouldn’t the teacher be reprimanded for hindering the ability of fertile and free-thinking academic minds to collaborate and learn and progress the ways in which they best see fit?
Tell the world what you think…you know where I stand.
www.ChrisDidntCheat.com
— Davin Carey Mar 21, 12:31 PM #
I wonder if the phrases “Facebook study group” and “homework help” don’t quite capture what was going on. If the student was honestly trying to facilitate an online version of a traditional study group then kudos to him. But if it was more akin to a paper mill then his instructor and the school obviously have grounds for discipline beyond his ignoring the ‘work independently’ stipulation.
— Brian Mar 21, 01:48 PM #