Harvard: Dozens disciplined over exam cheating
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Dozens of Harvard University students have been academically disciplined in an investigation into cheating on an open-book, take-home final exam.
As many as 125 students were implicated in the exam-cheating scandal when the university addressed the issue last year.
The inquiry started after a teaching assistant detected problems, including that students may have shared answers.
School officials say the spring course involved included undergraduate students at all class levels.
In an email sent across the campus Friday, a Harvard dean spoke about how the school's academic integrity board resolved cases related to the cheating probe.
He said "somewhat more than half" the cases involved students who were forced to withdraw from the college for a period of time. Of remaining cases, half the students got disciplinary probation. The rest weren't disciplined.
Some athletes became ensnared, including two basketball players who were scratched from the roster.
As many as 125 students were implicated in the exam-cheating scandal when the university addressed the issue last year.
The inquiry started after a teaching assistant detected problems, including that students may have shared answers.
School officials say the spring course involved included undergraduate students at all class levels.
In an email sent across the campus Friday, a Harvard dean spoke about how the school's academic integrity board resolved cases related to the cheating probe.
He said "somewhat more than half" the cases involved students who were forced to withdraw from the college for a period of time. Of remaining cases, half the students got disciplinary probation. The rest weren't disciplined.
Some athletes became ensnared, including two basketball players who were scratched from the roster.
" ..open-book, take-home final exam"
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A little like leaving a pork chop on the coffee table when you own a dog.
 @al_wa Not necessarily - students who haven't been attending class or doing the other work are screwed when it comes to these exams (if the course is designed well). With take-home exams, we can expect more. I find they really separate the wheat from the chaff. The good students do really well, the ones who were never engaged tend to bomb pretty badly.
 @C T Thanks for the tutorials on "open-book, take-home final exam." You missed the point. The subject is cheating. Nothing prevents the good student from helping the bad student. The temptation is great and you placed the pork chop on the coffee table.
No wonder it's called a practice for all those doctors and lawyers! They didn't learn anything in school.
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 @the unvarnished truth So I assume you would have the same critique of W, JFK, and FDR (and a few others, going way, way back)? Because they all went to Harvard (as did Romney). Or is this just an Obama thing for you?
 @C T  @the unvarnished truth there's always someone who has to make it about Obama no matter what the topic - you could be talking about flowers & somehow these folks would find a way to make it something bad about Obama.  (Not that I totally agree with everything he does - more that he is the President, & I believe, is trying his best, with a very divided Congress.)  But some people *do* always have to do this, no matter how obtuse & tortured the supposed connection--they just got an axe to grind & they're going to grind it..........
 @Smartypants  @C T  @the unvarnished truth I agree. But I did feel compelled to respond with at least some basic facts...
Faculty need to be smarter about how they design assignments, too. Some of my colleagues make it seem like they want students to plagiarize (e.g. one big paper at the end of term as the only assignment). Be creative, switch things up, expect individuality and creativity, and make it as impossible to fake as you can. And then know, too, that the cheaters will reap the whirlwind in their own subtle ways over time, even if they don't get caught now.Â
open book take home final exam. that's not the way I remember it.. if you gotta cheat on that, you might be congressman material.
 @ballardanian I only do take-home, open book exams (except in first- and second-year courses, where we're not allowed to). I make them far harder than in-class exams and have higher expectations about the quality of writing, use of evidence, etc. I find in-class, closed-book exams discriminate against students who need a little more time to think things through or who have learning differences that aren't quite diagnosable and so don't get special accommodation (e.g. separate, longer exam times). Basically, in-class exams largely tell you which students are good at taking in-class exams, rather than which students really internalized the course content (in my case, history).