Sharing coursework with course colleagues - would you do it?

[Ole]

Hi all, I'm in my 40s and I am having school flashbacks. Here it goes...

I'm doing a professional qualification and as part of the exam we have to do a piece of coursework. We have submitted drafts to our course tutor before submitting it to the qualifying body, and my course tutor has suggested to another student that she asks me to see my draft assignment so that she can see what to aim for [smug pat on the back for me].

My instinct is to say: 'Of course, here it is have a copy, have my firstborn child, have my house, everything', because I am a people pleaser and I don't like to say 'no', and also because I would love for somebody to share their assignment with me too if I was in her shoes.

However.....a long long time ago when I was doing A levels I let a friend copy a Biology essay and we got caught and we both got 0, so I learnt that lesson.

These days and in grown up courses, is letting somebody else see my exam coursework cheating? But I don't know how to say 'no', and I will have to see the student most weeks for the rest of the course, and there is more than 6 months to go, and I just want to be loved. But how would they find out if I share my assignment? Would it even matter? What if Who knows, but I'm of the paranoid type - can you tell?

What would you do? I'm back in the playground!

[JohnL]

Google I did and the first result from Leicester Uni

"Students should not be doing each other?s assessed work. Students often help each other and share ideas (which is ok) but if their work is too similar they both lose marks for copying!"

So I wouldn't show my work but I'd be happy to talk about it - a bit of a compromise for nice people :).

[nxjen]

There are alarm bells going off in my head on your behalf. Who has approached you about showing your work to another student? I may be out of touch but if it was the course tutor there is something very unprofessional about this, surely s/he must have samples of coursework to show the other student,it seems the tutor is passing the buck without being aware of the possible implications. If it is the other student saying the course tutor has suggested you show her your work - well ....

I would do nothing and if asked directly again just "forget", you are under no obligation to share the fruits of your labour. Six months will pass soon enough, in a year's time you'll have forgotten all about it.

[KidKruger]

I wouldn't do the 'just forget' thing, because that's stringing someone along and would be unfair and wasting the other student's time and expectations.

Just make-up your mind what you're prepared to do and tell whoever that's your decision / as far as you'll go, you can explain why if challenged but it should be obvious from the way you tell tem anyway.

IMO no point risking your own results, also only provide time if you can really afford to - I find adult education is such a squeeze already !

Having said that - I did computing and maths and used to sell my assignments to the tail-end Charlies who were always late, trick was to have a couple of solutions and not sell the one you submit.

[uncleglen]

Definitely not if it is going to be submitted formally. People say they will not copy but they do if they are desperate enough to ask. If someone gets a good grade from your work and they are not competent, they may get a job and not be able to do it- so you are not doing them any favours. All unis etc have anti-plagiarism software as well- (an example of this -schools get caught out, kids submit similar coursework or cut and paste from the internet and everyone is penalised)

[ianr]

As a possible heuristic, what would be your view if the tutor had suggested that she look at his own draft version of the sort of work that would be required? And is there any useful distinction to be made between having a look at a draft and (as you propose) being given a copy of it?

[Jules-and-Boo]

No chance. A tutor should not ask you to share your work.

As for saying no., practice it in a mirror.

JohnL has a good answer.

[TheCat]

Agree with the sentiment here...dont share the work. Sounds like the tutor is saving him/her-self the effort of actually doing any 'tutoring'....

[miga]

When I started doing my MSc in a slightly tangential field to what my degree was in, I was flabbergasted at how

"result focused" a lot of my colleagues were. A lot of people in their 20's, 30's, 40's who were already working, doing a course to help them in their career or to change career (presumably), paying for it (or being sponsored by their employer), but totally focused on marks, rather than on learning the thing itself. There was a lot of whingeing about how the material was delivered ("wah, wahhh, where are the video recordings"), assignment "group work" etc. I felt quite bad for the course coordinator, to be honest. As for copying - if it's maths or some kind of quantitative thing, there's usually a right way to do it, so as long as presentation is different, I guess it's more a question of personal ethics.

[Ole]

Thank you all for taking the time to reply.

I have decided I'm not going to share, but what I'm going to do is tell her what chapters of the recommended reading I found useful and offer to have a chat with her before the next lecture. I'm investing a lot of time (and money) into this course and for all I know, although she seems lovely and I'm sure she means well, if she copied outright then it would be obvious, and it is part of an exam not just class homework, so it is not worth the risk.

If that makes me the class unpopular girl.....well, I've dealt with bigger and nastier.....

[uncleglen]

You can actually pay independent anonymous people on the internet to do the essay writing these days. Even medical students will get these people to research and write their essays in order to get the marks....but as miga said it is focusing on the marks and not the accumulation of the actual knowledge that some of them are after....when they come to sit exams they are having to learn from scratch because they didn't put the time into the coursework.

[ianr]

TomS12 Wrote:

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> A lot of people do that.

Which 'that' do you mean?

[seenbeen]

We were all given a full scientific paper at uni and the coursework was to write the abstract in a certain number of words.

I went into class and a student who I didn't know sat next to me and asked if I'd done the abstract. I said yes. (it was a week before it was due in btw). She then had the audacity to ask to see it. I said no and promptly handed it in there and then.

I wished I'd said 'No, I haven't done it' to save myself the aggro. of having to say 'no, you can't look at it.'

[EDguy89]

Ole Wrote:

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> If that makes me the class unpopular

> girl.....well, I've dealt with bigger and

> nastier.....

I wouldn't worry about it. Outside of class they're probably not even thinking about you.

[ianr]

You're replying to a three year old post btw.

More old threads are getting revived now. It's one of the tactics used by forum spammers who are paid to get links to other commercial websites inserted into apparently reputable and credible locations. They may well start with sn innocuous post, and seek to introduce the link(s) later, either by editing or by introducing a subsequent apparently related post under another username. See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_spam; though I'm not inclined to attribute the instances here to bot software, even if some might be used to automate some of the process.

[seenbeen]

Interestingly, a school in SE London used to have examples of students' GCSE coursework on the walls showing different grades for other students to look at. This encourages the idea that plagiarism is ok in my opinion

[JohnL]

seenbeen Wrote:

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> Interestingly, a school in SE London used to have

> examples of students' GCSE coursework on the walls

> showing different grades for other students to

> look at. This encourages the idea that plagiarism

> is ok in my opinion

We did past papers for 'O' and 'A' levels every year and as the same questions came up year after year if you could be bothered to go through the standard answers you passed.

It's basically looking for the people who take an interest in the course - if you can be bothered to look at the papers on the walls you're probably swotting up on the course as well. You still should work alone in the main.