Re: database systems and organizational intelligence

From: Dawn M. Wolthuis <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com>
Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 12:15:46 -0500
Message-ID: <c97s4c$p41$1_at_news.netins.net>


"Alan" <alan_at_erols.com> wrote in message news:2hp2n6Fflk47U1_at_uni-berlin.de...
> >
> > Lament -- I'm teaching Java in the Fall and the last time I taught a
> college
> > language course was over 20 years ago --COBOL, Fortran, and BASIC.
Where
> we
> > were once able to teach a language and in short order a student could
take
> > in data, validate it, use it, modify it, store it, and retrieve it (i.e.
> > data processing), we might now need to teach Java, SQL, XML (including
> many
> > xml-based "languages" such as ant), jsp, html (along with taglibs etc)
to
> > write one little example of taking in data, storing it and retrieving it
> > again the way a production system might work. (and then to get the
> software
> > run-time environment set up...!!)
> >
>
> Just a "watch out". I stopped teaching last year as I became very
> disillusioned with the quality of the students. In every class I taught
> (undergrad seniors and graduate level), I discovered instances of cheating
> and/or plagiarism. I don't know what I would have found if I was actively
> looking for it. This was at a leading (according to U.S News & World
Report
> listing) university for I.S. I hope your experience is different, but my
> dean indicated that this is a nationwide problem.

Yes, I saw a documentary on that. My husband teaches theology at the same college and has not noticed a significant issue, but students might fear being struck down by a higher power in that subject.

> I don't give "repeat the facts back to me" questions, I give "you have to
> think about this and synthesize what you've learned" questions. I almost
> never give syntax questions. In case you are interested, here are some
> examples of the cheating:

Yes, thanks for the digression on my digression!

> * Take home final in what was essentially an "Intro to being a DBA class".
> (Yes cheating on a take-home final). How I caught them: They were given a
> business situation and asked to set up an Oracle database to support the
> given requirements. Specifically, in one question they were asked to
explain
> what tablespaces they would need, and what they would name them (there are
> recommended naming conventions). As I am grading the papers, one student
> supplied syntax fior creating tables (which I did not ask for, and
contained
> numerous glaring errors anyway). A few papers later, I find myself
thinking,
> "Didn't I just read this?" It was word-for-word, though slightly
rearranged.
> They even used the same names for attributes! The ironic part of this is
> (aside that it was a take-home final, and therfore they had the world's
> resources available to get it right), even if they had both gotten 100s on
> the exam (not likely), one _still_ would have gotten an F in the class,
and
> the other would have just barely passed with the lowes possible passing
> grade. So-they both would have gotten an F anyway. Now, they also have
> cheating on their university record.
>
> * Another class, this time three students. Assignment- create an ERD that
> models given business requirements. How they got caught: No two people
will
> ever come up with the exact same ERD, much less laying it out on the page
in
> exactly the same manner. I thought I came upon photocopies. Turns out
there
> were very slight modifications to some names, but that's all. When
> confronted, they deny it. I say, fine, all of you get an F for the course.
> Then stories start to surface. They conflict, but there is some overlap. I
> was able to determine who did the original work, and who just "stole" it.
> The original worker got downgraded, the other two got an F for the
> assignment.
>
> What is really galling, is that in addition to the university cheating
> policy, I explicitly layed out in the syllabus what kind of collaboration
> was allowed and what wasn't, what was plagiarism and what wasn't. No one
> ever claimed to be confused by the policy- they just cheated.

Good idea to do that!

> Now here's the really sad part of the story- as I mentioned, these were
> seniors and grad students. Could it be that they never cheated before? Of
> course not, so it means that faculty members either were not paying
> attention, just didn't care, or, more chillingly, were afraid to confront
> the students because it would affect the faculty member's student
> evaluation.

yikes -- I hadn't thought of that! Can't wait ... Thanks. --dawn Received on Fri May 28 2004 - 19:15:46 CEST

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