Econ grad student cheating case at Virginia :: Inside Higher Ed
QUOTE\ An “alarmingly large fraction” of the first-year class of economics graduate students at the University of Virginia were involved in a cheating incident that came to light this month, according to the department chair.
Department officials said that some problem sets from textbooks used in introductory graduate economics courses have answer keys online. At least one student found answers for a course taken by all first-year students, and apparently shared the information with classmates. Though the solutions were apparently available, David Mills, chair of the economics department, said students should have “known it was off-limits,” but that they instead “used it without the professor being aware.” /UNQUOTE
QUOTE\ An “alarmingly large fraction” of the first-year class of economics graduate students at the University of Virginia were involved in a cheating incident that came to light this month, according to the department chair.
Department officials said that some problem sets from textbooks used in introductory graduate economics courses have answer keys online. At least one student found answers for a course taken by all first-year students, and apparently shared the information with classmates. Though the solutions were apparently available, David Mills, chair of the economics department, said students should have “known it was off-limits,” but that they instead “used it without the professor being aware.” /UNQUOTE
posted by John B. Chilton at 7/02/2005 09:50:00 PM
2 Comments:
We had a case a bit like this at Guelph - some first year undergrads got hold of the instructor's guide to the text being used in the course, and found the answers to questions being used on quizzes. The matter was referred to the associate dean, who decided that it wasn't cheating. I agree with her decision - we keep telling students to use all available resources to find the answers to questions; this bunch just figured they'd lucked out. In any event, it's a good reason for instructors to make up their own questions instead of relying on guides.
My reaction was the same as yours, bsf. I can only assume that there's more to the story than has been reported - or that department chair is being cautious and letting a higher and more independent body decide whether this constitutes cheating.
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