Is Dexter ill today?

Mr. Kirk, Dexter’s in school

I’m afraid he’s not, Miss Fishpaw
Dexter’s truancy problem is way out of hand
The Baltimore County school board have decided to expel
Dexter from the entire public school system

Oh Mr Kirk, I’m as upset as you to learn of Dexter’s truancy
But surely, expulsion is not the answer!

I’m afraid expulsion is the only answer
It’s the opinion of the entire staff that Dexter is criminally insane

It came to my attention this morning that Ryerson University Engineering student Chris Avenir is facing expulsion for organizing a student study group. Let us ignore for the moment any arguments against Ryerson Engineering (…is this music?) in particular:

Study groups may be a virtual trademark of the Ivory Tower – but a virtual study group has been slammed as cheating by Ryerson University.

First-year student Chris Avenir is fighting charges of academic misconduct for helping run an online chemistry study group via Facebook last term, where 146 classmates swapped tips on homework questions that counted for 10 per cent of their mark.

The computer engineering student has been charged with one count of academic misconduct for helping run the group – called Dungeons/Mastering Chemistry Solutions after the popular Ryerson basement study room engineering students dub The Dungeon – and another 146 counts, one for each classmate who used the site.

Avenir, 18, faces an expulsion hearing Tuesday before the engineering faculty appeals committee. If he loses that appeal, he can take his case to the university’s senate.

The incident has sent shock waves through student ranks, says Kim Neale, 26, the student union’s advocacy co-ordinator, who will represent Avenir at the hearing.

“All these students are scared s—less now about using Facebook to talk about schoolwork, when actually it’s no different than any study group working together on homework in a library,” said Neale.

“That’s the worst part; it’s creating this culture of fear, where if I post a question about physics homework on my friend’s wall (a Facebook bulletin board) and ask if anyone has any ideas how to approach this – and my prof sees this, am I cheating?” said Neale, who has used Facebook study groups herself.

Ryerson officials have declined to comment while the case continues.

Ryerson’s academic misconduct policy, which is being updated, defines it as “any deliberate activity to gain academic advantage, including actions that have a negative effect on the integrity of the learning environment.”

Yet students argue Facebook groups are simply the new study hall for the wired generation.

Avenir said he joined the Facebook group last fall to get help with some of the questions the professor would give students to do online. As the network grew, he took over as its administrator, which is why he believes he alone has been charged.

“So we each would be given chemistry questions and if we were having trouble, we’d post the question and say: `Does anyone get how to do this one? I didn’t get it right and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.’ Exactly what we would say to each other if we were sitting in the Dungeon,” said Avenir yesterday.

He is still attending classes pending his hearing but admits the stress of the accusations is affecting his midterm exam results.

“But if this kind of help is cheating, then so is tutoring and all the mentoring programs the university runs and the discussions we do in tutorials,” he said.

Neale said the Facebook account appears to have been pulled offline yesterday, although Avenir said it has not been in use since the course ended in December.

He had earned a B in the class, but after the professor discovered the Facebook group over the holidays, the mark was changed to an F. The professor reported the incident to the school’s student conduct officer and recommended expulsion.

Neale said Avenir missed two meetings to discuss the matter because of a miscommunication. Tuesday’s hearing was arranged to give him a chance make his case against explusion. Ryerson is not obliged to do so.

While Neale admits the professor stipulated the online homework questions were to be done independently, she said it has long been a tradition for students to brainstorm homework in groups, particularly in heavy programs such as law, engineering and medicine.

Each student in the course received slightly different questions to prevent cheating, she said, and she did not see evidence of students doing complete solutions for each other. Instead, she said, they would brainstorm about techniques.

“They’d say to each other stuff like … `Remember what to do when you have positive cations (a type of positively charged ion)’ and that sort of thing,” she said.

But Neale admitted the invitation to the Facebook group may have been what landed them in trouble. It read: “If you request to join, please use the forms to discuss/post solutions to the chemistry assignments. Please input your solutions if they are not already posted.”

Still, said Neale, “no one did post a full final solution. It was more the back and forth that you get in any study group.”

Let us assume these homework questions are our equivalent of problem sets. The standing expectation for problem sets is that students will work together to determine how to solve a problem, and then to actually carry out the solution themselves. In a traditional study group, this is exactly what you see happening. Each student attempts to solve the question, comparing answers with other students as they go to make sure they are on the right track.

At first blush, it would seem this Ryerson professor has used the excuse of “on the internet” to attack a student that has done nothing more than extend a traditional study group into the virtual domain. However, there are several other issues that come along with this that the article doesn’t seem to cover.

For example, in a traditional study group, students won’t give out hints or techniques unless someone has shown that they made the attempt and have gotten stuck. In the Facebook version, partial solutions and hints are available to any student at any time. If you knew there was a list of hints on how to solve a problem set readily available, wouldn’t you be tempted to bring it up before even beginning the problem set yourself?

Another example relates to the work ethic of students. Students that actively participate in study groups / sessions / tutoring / whatever have a relatively well developed work ethic, and are dedicated to doing the work themselves. This is why they attend. Other students either find no value from study groups or are not sufficiently motivated to take the time to attend. The latter now has access to the same wealth of information as those students who were active enough to attend in the first place, thus gaining an academic advantage they otherwise would not have had.

As carefully as the article is worded to indicate the group’s focus on techniques and concepts as opposed to solutions, I find it hard to believe that there would not be at least partial solutions, lists of procedures, etc., along with final numbers for comparison. Without having participated in this particular group, I cannot make any first-hand judgments. While I don’t believe that this warrants expulsion (perhaps a slap on the wrist), I am not entirely convinced that this student is “innocent.”

Update

The quote at the top of the page is an excerpt from a film called Polyester. That particular excerpt was sampled in a song by The Avalanches titled Frontier Psychiatrist.