This is not the biggest issue in the world, but I thought the story was interesting since it's spread nationally & led to stories about academic integrity.
A video has went viral that depicts a situation that occurred in a Capstone Strategic Management class at the University of Central Florida a couple weeks back. The professor accuses about a 1/3 of his class of cheating on the midterm exam, and then dresses them down for a lack of ethics. What exactly did the "cheaters" do? The professor used the textbook publisher's test bank to create the midterm. A student or group of students were able to procure the test bank from the publisher, and then shared it with others, leading to an anomalous grade distribution.
Some have seen the incident as more evidence of a culture of cheating, while others are asking whether what the students did should even be considered cheating?
If you ever wanted to know what a bimodal distribution looks like.....
According to reports, about 200 students confessed to using the test bank in order to avoid being caught by "forensic analysis" & risk expulsion.
From the Orlando Sentinel:
One website plays to frazzled students' fears. "Is all your work starting to pile up on you? ... Do you want to be more prepared for the tests your professor gives so you can reach that A?"
Another cuts right to the point. "All Solutions Manuals & Test Banks Are HERE."
Both websites, and plenty of others, offer ways to buy textbook instructors' manuals that include "test banks" — questions and answers provided by textbook publishers to professors.
Professors sometimes use these test banks to devise their own tests.
At the University of Central Florida, administrators say one or more students in a senior-level business class purchased a test bank for the textbook "Strategic Management: A Dynamic Perspective Concept and Cases." Then it was shared with some 200 classmates in the strategic management class. The course instructor used that same 300-question test bank — which he thought secure — to create his midterm exam.
The grades on the midterm were unusually high, and UCF soon had a cheating scandal that made national news. The incident has sparked debates about academic integrity and questions about whether test banks are legitimate study guides or unethical glimpses at potential exams.
However, some UCF students feel the entire incident is a double standard. They argue the test bank was nothing more than a study guide, and the class' professor had stated earlier in the semester that he "created" the exams for the class. They even have video proof.
From Techdirt:
Watching Quinn's video, it became clear that in accusing his students of "cheating" he was really admitting that he wasn't actually writing his own tests, but merely pulling questions from a testbank. That struck me as odd -- and I wasn't really sure that what the students did should count as cheating. Taking "sample tests" is a very good way to learn material, and going through a testbank is a good way to practice "sample" questions. It seemed like the bigger issue wasn't what the students did... but what the professor did.
In looking around, it looks like a lot of the students agree. They're saying that the real issue is that Prof. Quinn simply copied questions from the publisher, rather than actually recreating his own test, and noting that this seems like a massive double standard. The professor is allowed to just copy questions from others for his tests? In fact, some of the students have put together a video pointing out that, at the beginning of the year, Prof. Quinn claimed that he had written the test questions himself. As the article notes:
Can the UCF students be blamed for using all the available tools to study for the test? How were the students to know that Quinn would take his questions from the test bank, when he explicitly said that professors do not do so any more? Moreover, why did Quinn tell his students that he is the one who creates the mid-term and final exams, when in fact it wasn’t so?
Each university is different, and I have no idea what the exact specifics are for the University of Central Florida's honor code, but all things being equal I kind of come down on the side of the students. I don't think it's cheating, since it's not the students fault the professor copied the test bank questions without altering anything. I mean, if the professor & the lab instructors can come up with an entirely new exam within 96 hours, they could of at least inserted some new questions or "jumbled up" answers on the midterm that was from the test bank.