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.\u00a0 These two computers were only a few feet apart!\u00a0 After a slow start, the Internet exploded in the late 1990s to become the world\u2019s most powerful platform for connecting people and collaboration regardless of time or place.\u00a0 As the educators of the next generation of business professionals, we require our students to leverage this platform for connecting and collaboration.\u00a0 Thomas Friedman tells us that, over time, the creation of the Internet represents an inflection point in the development of mankind.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
As digital natives, students today have indeed learned to leverage the Internet.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it is not always the way we expect.\u00a0 The Internet is the home for countless web sites where students can share class materials and improve their grades.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Many educators are na\u00efve of what is going on and ignorant of what their students are doing.\u00a0 As educators, we have an obligation to understand what is going on and must develop controls that safeguard academic integrity.<\/p>\n
Some things never change.\u00a0 When I was an undergraduate freshman studying Engineering, I vividly remember taking an exam in Differential Equations.\u00a0 I was na\u00efve and didn\u2019t understand why the student sitting next to me took two exams at the beginning of the exam period.\u00a0 I thought that completing one of these exams would be painful enough; why would a student grab two exams?\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Being a freshman I was a bit confused and never said anything to anyone.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I had finally figured out how the guys from this frat could party every night and still do reasonably well on exams!<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n