Cancelled Continuous Assesment because of 'cheating'

blanket

Was delighted myself when I came into the lecture on Wedensday morning to hear that our CA exam worth 25% was to be cancelled because some people cheated by getting the mcq the day before. I hadn't studied really so was good for me but a few people were pretty annoyed. The module is taken accross a feww courses at different times so one stream did their CA on Tuesday. Apperently someone just took an exam out from that lecture and photocopied it for a few people and naturally it got around.

But isn't that a bit of a joke? Having an exam cirulating even by mouth before someone has even sat it! I thought the biggest uni in this country would have organised for a)everyone to do it at the same time or b)at least have different exams! It was cancelled because they found out it had been photocopied but that's a bit of a joke isn't it. I mean it could have been spread through word of mouth just as easy. Its a leap of faith to hope nobody would cheat out of hundreds of people and not to put in proceedures against this!

Now our whole Christmas exam is worth 100% because the lecturer said she won't make another and gave a speech about how dissapointed she was. I think its a bit of a joke tbh. Are the people who did their CA the day before without a hitch gonna keep their scores and be examined the same way? Its a bit silly to have non repeat students having themselves judged on whether they passed a module under different criteria!!

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Have a friend in that class.

He said the lecturer's speech was excellent.

blanket

Sean_K wrote: »

Have a friend in that class.

He said the lecturer's speech was excellent.

She could have made extra exams just in case you know? I thought it was a prerequisite in writing an exam. I only caught the tail end of the speech because I legged it for a pencil because i thought it was on still but she seemed to say she despaired for Ireland and our culture of 'cute hoorism'. What about been half arsed and not having different exams for different time? It doesn't matter what country your in but people will always cheat if it is risk free.

Zuffer

Sean_K wrote: »

Have a friend in that class.

He said the lecturer's speech was excellent.

That maybe so. I bet she gave an impassioned speech about honesty, integrity, etc.

However, the lecturer also does not live in the real world. The fact is that, under the circumstances described, it only took two people out of a class of X to invalidate the whole exam. It is entirely possibly that that 95% of the class were ready to sit the exam fairly. Yet she was tarring them all with the same brush.

The fact is that if you make it super easy risk free to cheat, some people will cheat. Not all, but enough to undermine the integrity of the exam. It should be a requirement of being a college lecturer to know that. Of course the exam should have been held simultaneously for everyone taking it. Anything else is unfair.

I'd be willing to bet cash that this was not an economics exam.

insert-gear

blanket wrote: »

Now our whole Christmas exam is worth 100%!

Did you not do a report? Christmas exam is worth 85%

Zuffer wrote: »

.

However, the lecturer also does not live in the real world. The fact is that, under the circumstances described, it only took two people out of a class of X to invalidate the whole exam. It is entirely possibly that that 95% of the class were ready to sit the exam fairly. Yet she was tarring them all with the same brush.


I'd be willing to bet cash that this was not an economics exam.

It was an accounting exam. Pretty much everyone in the next class had gotten a copy of the questions. The retards were so obvious about photocopying it (in the quinn school) that the copy lady copped on what they were doing. Glad they got stung though, otherwise the other class would have gotten 100% and we would have just got average grades


I was absoulutely raging though. We had another exam in ops that I didnt study for cos I was studying for accounting.

Theresalwaysone

The real funny thing about it all is this happened to 3rd Comm last year too. Except we were told that if the final exam grades were noticably worse than the grades in the midterm we would be questioned about it orally, or at the discretion of the examiner/lecturer.

Same thing happened, MCQ was photocopied, well a few of them were and the questions and answers circulated. The powers that be found out and instead of making the final exam 100%, or having another exam (one like the first years do in economics in smurfit, everyone together) they went with the above solutions.

But there was so much wrong with their solution. Meh, UCD.

Red Alert

I still maintain that overall the same people will do well or badly even if they have the questions already.

insert-gear

In an mcq... where they know the exact question... and they can find the answer before going into the exam... theyre gonna do well, no matter how thick they are.

blanket

insert-gear wrote: »

Did you not do a report? Christmas exam is worth 85%



It was an accounting exam. Pretty much everyone in the next class had gotten a copy of the questions. The retards were so obvious about photocopying it (in the quinn school) that the copy lady copped on what they were doing. Glad they got stung though, otherwise the other class would have gotten 100% and we would have just got average grades


I was absoulutely raging though. We had another exam in ops that I didnt study for cos I was studying for accounting.

Ye sorry I did do a report, I should have said the CA marks would now be all in the Christmas exam-so ye 85% instead of 60%.

I just think its an absolute joke. How can UCD even claim to be a top University if that kind of amateurish stuff goes on. And I do feel sorry for all the people who studied hard ect, so is all the exams for commerce students now null and void?

I honestly didn't know anything about it until she said it at the start, I missed the day before.

Siog-Alainn

I'm in this class and was pretty annoyed about it. It would have been a handy enough 25%, considering I had studied. I didn't see the paper or heard of anyone else seeing it until that morning, nor did any of my friends, so I don't think it's right to say everyone had a copy of it.

I agree with what she did, it was the fairest way. But it should have been foreseen that something like this would happen. Like someone else already pointed out why couldn't we have done it altogether or have had separate exams for each class?

K4t

Siog-Alainn wrote: »

or have had separate exams for each class?

I'm not sure on this but having seperate exams for the same course might cause problems in that one exam may be deemed harder than the other and complaints could be made etc.?

muffinman

I'm in this class too..
The way it all came about was a bit ridiculous tbh.. It was bound to happen when you consider that there were going to be three separate sittings of the same exam. With 300 people in a single lecture theatre all bunched up sitting the same exam (far from an integral exam process in the first place) , at least one of them is going to take the MCQ out and give it to a friend in one of the other 2 lectures, and so it spreads...

And also...
"I support you 100%"

graduate

This kind of thing can be reduced by having loads of invigilators etc. However whatever the aspirations of UCD, there is currently very little money. Instead of spending money on actually educating people, money is needed for things like invigilators, security men etc to stop a minority of people whose primary interest is not education.

Siog-Alainn

K4t wrote: »

I'm not sure on this but having seperate exams for the same course might cause problems in that one exam may be deemed harder than the other and complaints could be made etc.?

Well I think in the circumstances it would be better to have it that way, rather than for something like this to happen and putting extra pressure on us for the final exam.

muffinman wrote: »

And also...
"I support you 100%"

Agreed! Why would he have said that? Especially when people were freaking out and p*ssed off at it all...at least wait till after the lecture to say it to her if you feel the need

lemon_sherbert

I'm not overly surprised this happened, I took this class last year and was in the first class to take the MCQ, as soon as we did the test everyone was asking what the questions were like. And we were allowed to bring out our rough-work paper, if I remember correctly, so anyone could have written down the questions to bring out.

And I'm pretty sure some one was cheating in a test we had last week, absolutely infuriating, but I didn't have solid evidence so I didn't feel comfortable reporting him.

I have great sympathy for the lecturers in setting exams, often timetabling/budget concerns makes it impossible to hold the exams outside class-time, and that while 90% of the class wouldn't think of cheating, unfortunately safeguards need to be in place for the other 10%.

It's unfortunate for those who honestly studied for the test, but it will pay off for them in the final exam, and those who cheated shouldn't be allowed benefit to the detriment of those who study.

blanket

lemon_sherbert wrote: »

I'm not overly surprised this happened, I took this class last year and was in the first class to take the MCQ, as soon as we did the test everyone was asking what the questions were like. And we were allowed to bring out our rough-work paper, if I remember correctly, so anyone could have written down the questions to bring out.

And I'm pretty sure some one was cheating in a test we had last week, absolutely infuriating, but I didn't have solid evidence so I didn't feel comfortable reporting him.

I have great sympathy for the lecturers in setting exams, often timetabling/budget concerns makes it impossible to hold the exams outside class-time, and that while 90% of the class wouldn't think of cheating, unfortunately safeguards need to be in place for the other 10%.

It's unfortunate for those who honestly studied for the test, but it will pay off for them in the final exam, and those who cheated shouldn't be allowed benefit to the detriment of those who study.

A lot more would consider it if it is finding out the paper before the exam. A lot more.

The lecturer tried to make it out that it was 'Ireland and our cute hore' way about things but the only 'Irish' thing I saw was the absolute failure of their exam system.

Putting on 3 different MCQs is fine, we got 2 different ones in a different module for Accounting last year. In a lot of business subjects the MCQs are online and randome questions so we are all different anyway. ANd as has been said Economics seem to be able run an MCQ in Smurfit.

lemon_sherbert

blanket wrote: »

A lot more would consider it if it is finding out the paper before the exam. A lot more.
.

Maybe I'm too optimistic about the integrity of students

blanket

blanket wrote: »

The lecturer tried to make it out that it was 'Ireland and our cute hore' way about things but the only 'Irish' thing I saw was the absolute failure of their exam system.

Exactly. It's nothing to do with Ireland. The same thing would have happened anywhere. I would put the blame on the lecturer for being too lazy to follow proper procedure.

Breezer

K4t wrote: »

I'm not sure on this but having seperate exams for the same course might cause problems in that one exam may be deemed harder than the other and complaints could be made etc.?

No, it's done all the time for my course. As long as the standard is deemed to be the same the actual questions don't have to be.

muffinman

[quote=[Deleted User];63017027]Exactly. It's nothing to do with Ireland. The same thing would have happened anywhere. I would put the blame on the lecturer for being too lazy to follow proper procedure.[/QUOTE]

To quote the lecturer numerous times: "I'm lazy"

mloc

Is there any disciplanary action over this?

The students involved should be expelled, simple as.

blanket

mloc wrote: »

Is there any disciplanary action over this?

The students involved should be expelled, simple as.

How do you prove they were cheating? If I had studied I wouldnt have minded a few more MCQs to practice with. They could have been ignorant of the fact that some departments of UCD are lazy and have thought different exams for different days. I've never seen this level of ineptitude in school exams even tbh.

And even then what is cheating? Clearly knowingly photocopying the exam but the question there is why was the exam allowed to be out. Also one student can tell the other questions orally and that too is cheating but impossible to prove.

Red Alert

Actually on that one - did they say you weren't allowed tell anyone what the questions were?

blanket

Ha the Independent had an article apprently about this yesterday, a full 3 weeks since it actually happened. Can't have made the Quinn school look very good at meetings with the big wigs.

The Agogo

and the herland and the Star not to mention College Tribune (which was just more of a rant than a news article) and the UniObserver..