What that cheater up to? A case of morally corrupt student!
Two decades later after witnessing the exploits of my brothers in WWF Wrestlemania, I find myself going back to school and doing my 2nd Bachelor's at the UoPeople. It's sad to say that the school is full of cheaters with the advent of websites like Course Hero and Studocu. On top of that, students post the work of other students on these questionable websites. Nothing makes me smoke than seeing my work and name associated with these websites.
The last term, a student uploaded the work of all the students in my class on Course Hero. I found about it when I ran a plagiarism checker on one student's Discussion Assignment. It turned out that all the assignments of the students in our class were being uploaded by a student on Course Hero. It was easy to recognize the perpetrator because their profile picture on Course Hero matched the one in the class. It made me quite furious. So, I reported it to the university and my instructor. Unfortunately, nothing came out of it. The number of documents uploaded by the student from that class kept on increasing. I even reached out to the student in the class privately and on Facebook to let them know how unethical it was and that they stop it. Sadly, they ignored me. Now the term is over, the unethical student is still uploading our work on Course Hero.
I've exercised all my options and done everything I could. I really didn't want to do this, but I've no option but to expose the unethical student publicly. As per the university's code of conduct: "Under no circumstances are students allowed to publicly share (for example on blogs, websites, social media, databases) their work completed at or for University of the People until two calendar years from the end of the student’s final term of study. Students are also prohibited from publicly sharing the works or course materials of another student."
The student's name is Tolulope Abolade. They've been uploading the assignments of students at Course Hero (321 documents as of today!) since heavens know when here. (Tolulope Abolade has changed their name to DoctorFieldKookabura19 now on Course Hero. They're very much active and uploading precious work of students on Course Hero).
I feel that the UoPeople needs do more to stop dishonest students. Changing the questions in the curriculum should be a good start. Most questions are already vague and confusing in some courses like College Algebra and Multinational Management. Removing the option to copy from Discussion Forums and making Written Assignments read-only on the university's website would also eliminate morally corrupt students like Tolulope Abolade to copy and paste the work of other students on websites like Course Hero.
The onus is on the school, especially an online institution like the UoPeople where students come from various cultures and societies with distinctive takes on integrity. I agree that cheating is everywhere, but it's easier to curb it in brick-and-mortar universities with hands-on tools available to professors. With the advent of the pandemic, literally, all the schools became online until the mitigation of the virus through vaccines. A university I know was countering plagiarism online in the pandemic through new questions for assignments and an insane amount of questions for the finals (100 questions in 50 minutes) on web pages with copying disabled. In my perspective, the UoPeople needs to update its curriculum, go hard on dishonest students, and put some new checks in its LMS to counter plagiarism, especially during exams and eliminate the ability to copy the works of other students. The students need to understand that academic dishonesty is absolutely wrong, and they aren't learning anything from it but are only cheating and robbing themselves of opportunities.
Tolulope Abolade, if you're reading this, I hope karma strikes back and hits you where the sun doesn't shine.
I think that it's necessary that someone takes effective action on that. I discovered that a lot of quizes, assignments, and exams are solved on the internet. I supposed there are three possible solutions:
ReplyDelete1- Instructors must be rigid. For instance, I have an instructor in a computer class who knew when someone simply copied the code from another source. The problem here is that this cannot be used for multiple answer questions. We do not know if someone cheats during a multiple choice exam.
2- UoPeople must change exams periodically. Here the problem is the costs that this would involve. From the rules, it seems they change the exams every two years. However, it's necessary to change them every term. Maybe not great changes but small ones. For example, instead of asking for the sum of 5+3 the next term ask 5+8. I do not know how feasible these changes can be. It's hard to ask for this option because it's expensive and the idea is to be an accessible university.
3- More control on students. I do not know how easy is to make this possible. However, based on the case you mentioned it seems students can do a lot of things without any sanction. I hope this can change.
If this continues, it will produce bad professionals from UoPeople. And the image of the University will have a negative effect on the same students who are doing this. +
Anyway, changing of topic... Do you have any idea of how many students per advisor Uopeople has?
I agree with your suggestions. I hope that the UoPeople implements them to stop cheaters. In my old university, the final exams/assignments had versions with numbers and questions varying from one student to another. That helped curb plagiarism a great deal.
DeleteRegarding your question, I'm not sure. But I believe each advisor would easily have at least 50 or more students assigned to them.
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteI'm an UoPeople student (CS) at the end of my bachelor's (just a term away), and I do agree, that UoPeople and every other university should at least rotate their exam material so that there isn't a straightforward way to cheat. That's why they have that clause on not being allowed to post before two years on those sites.
With that said, sites like Chegg, Studocu, and CourseHero are not for cheating, as knives are not for killing, but there are always people doing that too. Instead, they are useful tools for students, to read, and prepare for assignments and exams by sharing their notes (and assignments and tests), but not for copying them or using them on your exams.
Now about a student posting other students' material, that's not a good thing and should be taken rid of by the university and/or by that website.
To put it mildly, if I see my own work on those sites, I will legally prosecute that person, and the company, if the university doesn't warn and or eventually expel the student.
But there's also another way to look at it, let the cheater cheat... in the end, they would not have learned, and they will not be prepared for anything in life, but just keep cheating. Good luck to them.
I personally can attest that I haven't cheated nor in games (which I do enjoy playing), nor in school... or I wouldn't be going through 4 years of university! My time is precious, so if I spend it, I'll be sure to get something out of it (Education!).
It's an unfortunate thing. In fact, I'm studying in the Arabic section (maybe you heard about it) at this university and there is happening some things that are worst than what you said. They have a network of WhatsApp groups and every class has a special group and you can't rate with justice. We are at a level where anybody gives an assignment that is copied from the internet zero, there have no excuse to do this, and you must give him/her 10/10 & 90/90. it's normally when you see someone complain about an unfair rate and you discover he\she doesn't respect APA roles or didn't answer the questions. They controlled the students and imposed values that they made moral, and I do not need to tell you that they are always the victors when you tell your instructor or your advisor, except with a strict instructor, and they have your name and your score is in their hands (remember this). Because of that, they are the majority who control the lists of the president and the dean.
ReplyDeleteThis university is great, but according to my experiences, it depends on the instructor in degrees or your performance. Sometimes, I feel depressed and stressed because of them. So you are not alone.
If you meet Tolulope, he will tell you that "..we must help each other and there some students are working and they have children. We don't know what they facing and we wish each other well.." 🤥
Thank you for your take on the subject. I was indeed contacted by a student in my first year on Moodle who said if I graded them well, they would grade me well. I ignored them. Afterward, I noted that they began giving me low scores.
DeleteI'm sorry for that. Okay, they made a deal, and you ignored them. And maybe they collaborated against you and maybe you were the only one who disagreed. I don't know what the probability is that you will meet them again. As long as there are no groups linked by one moral creed, you are fine. For me, I was defamed in the third term of the year 21, which means that we all did not complete our first year. At the time, I didn't know about these groups and it took me time to discover that they know me. The sad part of this story is that I still get unfair assessments just on suspicion. Despite taking care, giving all the assurances, and giving full marks in discussions.
DeleteYou will face disgusting students, but the most important is don't give up. Distance education is never good, especially at this university.
They practice terror and fear against students and publish exam questions and then celebrate their 4.00 mark. I hope that this university proves that it is a self-respecting institution.
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