Grade ‘F’ for Facebook

Toronto’s Ryerson University demands our attention for charging freshman Chris Avenir two weeks ago with cheating after he helped popularize a Facebook study group called “Dungeons/Mastering Chemistry Solutions” for a chemistry course last term. In this online study group, 146 classmates posted and discussed their solutions to problems that covered 10 percent of their final grade.\nAvenir had earned a ‘B’ in the course, but after his professor found the Facebook group over the semester break, he changed the mark to an ‘F’ and recommended Avenir be expelled.\n“If this kind of help is cheating,” Avenir said, “then so is tutoring and all the mentoring programs the university runs and the discussions we do in tutorials.” \nWe agree. Apparently some students did engage in academic misconduct by posting answers to problems, but Avenir was not among them. Avenir’s only “crime” was to use an already popular medium to help students understand their homework and prepare for quizzes.\nAvenir received 147 counts of academic misconduct, one for administering the group and the rest for each member, a fact which seems ludicrously unfair. Normally Ryerson simply gives a zero in any assignment or exam in which a student is caught cheating, and includes a notation on the student’s transcript. But in this case the university took the extra step of expelling Avenir. It’s hard to imagine the reasoning behind this.\nConsidering the rigorous pace and atmosphere common in college science classes, Avenir hardly crossed the line of appropriateness by helping carve this cyber-niche of help and trust. A scholarly yet friendly community for dealing with a class’s daunting intricacies can be seen not only as legitimate, but also as a natural and student-friendly way to help each other.\nAs Kim Neale, Avenir’s representative at his hearing said, the administrators’ rashness is “creating this culture of fear, where if I post a question about physics homework on my friend’s wall ... and ask if anyone has any ideas how to approach this – and my prof. sees this, am I cheating?” John Adair, Avenir’s lawyer, questioned the university’s bleary definition of academic dishonesty: “They don’t define that until they decide what you have done is wrong.”\nWe believe Avenir was absolutely right in his desire to accelerate the learning process in the downtime between lectures and examinations, soften the intensity of competition and even enjoy the stimulation and bonding of group study. The force of the administration’s response to the possibility of cheating could not have been anticipated. A recent survey by the Center for Academic Integrity found that almost 80 percent of college students have admitted to cheating during their college careers. And of course we agree that cheating should not go unpunished. But comparing notes and going over problems outside of class is definitely not cheating. Neale said it best, asserting this Facebook group is “no different than any study group working together on homework in a library.” Avenir opened a forum where classmates could discuss difficult material and thus strengthen their grasp of that material. He deserves a pat on the back, not to be kicked out of school.