From humble beginnings in a lab where engineers struggled to get two computers from two different manufactures to transfer a single file or send a single piece of e-Mail, the Internet was born. These two computers were only a few feet apart! After a slow start, the Internet exploded in the late 1990s to become the world’s most powerful platform for connecting people and collaboration regardless of time or place. As the educators of the next generation of business professionals, we require our students to leverage this platform for connecting and collaboration. Thomas Friedman tells us that, over time, the creation of the Internet represents an inflection point in the development of mankind. Never before have so many people from all parts of be globe been able to connect and collaborate in real-time and at almost no cost.
As digital natives, students today have indeed learned to leverage the Internet. Unfortunately, it is not always the way we expect. The Internet is the home for countless web sites where students can share class materials and improve their grades. From basic study guides and flash card to answer keys to exams and assignments, in many cases students are sharing far more information than we ever expected. Many educators are naïve of what is going on and ignorant of what their students are doing. As educators, we have an obligation to understand what is going on and must develop controls that safeguard academic integrity.
Some things never change. When I was an undergraduate freshman studying Engineering, I vividly remember taking an exam in Differential Equations. I was naïve and didn’t understand why the student sitting next to me took two exams at the beginning of the exam period. I thought that completing one of these exams would be painful enough; why would a student grab two exams? In the chaos at the end of the exam period when the professor and his TA were hustling to collect exams, this student calmly stashed the extra exam in his backpack and was completely unnoticed. Being a freshman I was a bit confused and never said anything to anyone. Later on I found out that this student was a member of a fraternity and that the fraternity has a secret file cabinet in their basement full of old exams which the brothers would all use to prepare for exams. I had finally figured out how the guys from this frat could party every night and still do reasonably well on exams!
Again, some things never change and shenanigans like this take place regularly in classrooms where professors are not vigilant and where controls are not put in place. The difference now is that instead of an exam ending up in the secret filing cabinet in the basement of a frat house, the exam now ends up on the Internet where students can connect and collaborate like never before.
While this cannot be condoned, as business professionals, we must appreciate the number of and variety of e-Businesses that have come to market to exploit this phenomenon. For a fee, sites like www.coursehero.com provide students with access to everything from study guides and flash cards to old exams and answer keys to assignments. CourseHero doesn’t create any of this content. All of the content is contributed by its members. CourseHero simply provides the platform for connecting students with content. CourseHero claims that they are not doing anything that is unethical. Their policies clearly state what is not appropriate to post but without any policing, students will be students and they have clearly crossed the line between collaborating together to prepare for an exam and unethical behavior.
Any student with a computer and a credit card now has immediate access to the secret file cabinet in the basement of that frat. The world’s greatest platform for connecting and collaborating is now being used by our students in ways we never expected. Trying to stop students from leveraging the Internet in this way would be about as fruitful as stepping in front of a moving freight train.
While we can’t stop this phenomenon, there are things that we can do to help preserve academic integrity. Some approaches will work better than others. Some will work well but not be practical or sustainable over the longer term. I invite you to reflect on this issue and contribute your thoughts on this issue and what we as educators can do the address this issue.
Mart