A few weeks ago at the University of Central Florida, about 200 out of the 600 students in a senior level management class were thought to have had a copy of a midterm test prior to the exam. The university is allowing the cheaters to retake the exam (with different questions), along with taking an ethics seminar if they come forward and admit to the cheating. If they do not confess, cheaters face consequences as severe as expulsion.
Cheating is a big problem on college campuses, even here. Surveys have found that between two-thirds and three-quarters of students have said they have participated in some cheating within the previous year. College kids are smart, and generally would like to do the least amount of work to get the best grade possible. And since grades are so important, this inevitably leads to cheating.
While I don't think what the cheaters did at UCF is alright, I think a large part of the blame has to be put on the professor, Richard Quinn. It seems that someone obtained the question bank, which Quinn used to pick from around 700 questions and answers. From there, the student distributed them to others in the class. I'm assuming the bank was probably located somewhere online unprotected.
This reminds me of the scene from ""The Social Network,"" in which Mark Zuckerberg is at a disciplinary hearing for hacking into Harvard's website to get pictures of girls for the creation of an attractiveness rating website, ""FaceMash"" (the predecessor to Facebook). At the hearing, Zuckerberg said he should be thanked for pointing out glaring holes in the system's security. I would hope Harvard's website is a bit more protected today thanks to Zuckerberg.
Hopefully, the same will happen at UCF and other colleges across the nation. Professors need to realize that students will go to great lengths to get their hands on anything to make their lives easier, like exam questions. As students become craftier, professors will need to up their games as well. Because ultimately, it's up to professors to prevent cheating.
If a midterm is so important, then faculty members need to take the necessary precautions to make sure it is not available in any form. Quite simply, Quinn was lazy. Most professors use question banks. This is a sensible approach to what I assume would otherwise be a difficult task. But if professors are going to do this, they better make sure that these aren't going to be available to anyone else.
It might sound kind of like I am blaming the victim, but I'm not. Undeniably, what those kids did was unethical and against the rules, but Quinn should have done a better job securing the test.
Here's a hypothetical for comparison's sake: If I leave my apartment door unlocked and something inside gets stolen, people will blame me, at least partially. If I leave my laptop unattended at the library and it gets stolen, people would ask me why I left it unattended. Cheating is the same principle, except in an academic setting.
After this debacle, I'm sure Quinn will make a new question and answer bank from which to pull questions, something that needs to be done more frequently by every professor. Obviously, when the questions change on a consistent basis, it's harder to cheat with exams from previous years.
The situation is a bad one, but it could have been avoided and should be avoided in the future. Quinn, and professors everywhere, should strive to make it nearly impossible to cheat on exams.
At the end of the day, students shouldn't have cheated on the exam. That being said, it shouldn't have even been possible to do so. Both parties are to blame, but it should be expected, both now and in the future, that students will try to cheat. Quinn could have prevented this incident by taking steps to ensure his exam was not available to anyone under any circumstance. While the university is right to punish the cheaters, maybe they should think about punishing Quinn, too.
Mike Muggee is a senior majoring in actuarial science and finance. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
