Students Sharing Information About Courses, Exams Online
More college students are turning to shared-information websites to assist them with studying for exams, according to an article published in OKLAHOMA DAILY
A shared-information academic site is one which gives students information about college professors and their courses. They are controversial because some educators worry that the information that students share might sometimes cross over the boundary into cheating. More about Cheating as a Test Prep Strategy
These information-share sites provide information on a college’s professors and courses, along with details of what the professor normally expects the student to know from the material. Students are encouraged to upload their own class notes, and even quizzes and exams. They also buy and sell textbooks.
Students, and even many professors, defend the sites, saying this is just the 21st century equivalent of students comparing their class notes among themselves. Other professors are a bit more hesitant, pointing out that students are sharing exams and quizzes with one another. However, the websites themselves point out that the only exams permitted are old exams that are not currently used in the course. Studying old exams is one of the best study methods. Administrators say they do their research first to make sure that no current exam questions make it to their sites. They say that every new college that they service, they find out what the school’s honor code is and work hard to conform with that code.
The critics, though, point out that sometimes instructors use the same exams year after year.
Of course, the old-faithful among college student sites remains Facebook. Currently, it’s estimated that an astonishing 85% of college and university students use Facebook actively ( http://techcrunch.com/2005/09/07/85-of-college-students-use-facebook ). And there are more than 1,500 groups on Facebook devoted to the specific purpose of studying for various college classes. However, Facebook does not currently make it easy to share exam questions among its members.
Bottom line: What should your approach be to using these resources for test preparation? It’s an ethical call, but few people see any problem with sharing notes or even with sharing previous tests that are no longer in use. More discussion of the Ethics here from NPR. For tests that are still being actively used, though, it’s a different matter. Some might say it’s no different than handing a physical copy of this year’s exam to another student.
See also – The New Frontier in Cheating, and The Complete Guide to Test Preparation
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