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USM Forum -- Message Board -> AAUP-USM MESSAGE BOARD -> 23 FSU athletes accused of cheating
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Incredulous


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23 FSU athletes accused of cheating
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Today's Hattiesburg American has an AP story about Florida State athletes implicated in cheating on tests given over the Internet. This exposes the weakness of much online education that its advocates don't want to talk about -- often you don't know who is actually taking the course or the tests. Anyone who has taught in college classrooms knows it is hard enough to suppress cheating when you are in the room. The idea that people in a dorm room, apartment, or their own house are all playing by the rules is preposterous. In this case the athletes taking the internet courses were on campus. Why do you think they would be avoiding traditional courses? Years ago there were scandals associated with correspondence courses. On-line courses are no less prone to abuse. Informal conversations with students have convinced me that undergraduate on-line courses are subject to great amounts of cheating. Administrators don't want to hear this. It's all about money.

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BAD


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First let me say that I am not an advocate of online courses, especially in my area.  However, this sort of cheating can you usually be avoided if students are required to take tests at official testing centers that have paid proctors on site.  I have taught one online course in the past.  It was a miserable experience, but test security was maintained by proctors who had access to the password that allowed the student to take the exam.

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Incredulous


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That's the right way to handle exams. It is also rare.

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LVN


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BAD, why was your online course a miserable experience? I'd like to know, never having taught one.

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Love your enemies.  It makes them so damned mad.  ~P.D. East
BAD


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LVN wrote:

BAD, why was your online course a miserable experience? I'd like to know, never having taught one.



We all know that undergraduates have enough excuses when it comes to a traditional course.  Well, my limited experience indicates that when it comes to an online course there are many more excuses (e.g., network down, power outage).  I tend to be a little liberal in terms of extending timelines and dealing with excuses and it caused me quite a bit of grief in terms of teaching an online course as I basically "believed" anything that was told me as I had know way of independently verifying anything that was brought to me.  Also, I found, again based on limited experience, that the students who took my online course did not have the computer skills necessary to be successful in an online course.  So, I ended up with all sorts of problems in terms of having to talk students through logging onto the course web page, downloading/uploading materials, etc.  In the end, I felt like I spent more time holding students' hands than I would have done in a traditional course.



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Just Coasting


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One of my staff is working her way through a hybrid type course with a significant online component. There have been significant problems with the technical side of accessing what she needs.  A portion may be her computer skills, but we have had tech people in twice to deal with real technical problems.



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