Today I read in Dagens Næringsliv that 82 - count'em; 82 - students at the Norwegian School of Management (BI) were caught cheating on take-home exams, and were consequently expelled for a semester. As if this wasn't bad enough, the students have pressed charges against the school - not because they claim to be innocent (i.e. did not cheat), but because the punishment was unnecessarily harsh, and the school rules are too strict concerning cheating. The students admit that they cooperated on individual assignments, and even suggest that the only students who didn't cheat in this particular finance course were the ones with the smallest social circles, i.e. available cheat buddies.
Save for the fact that lawyers don't care if the clients are innocent or not - what kind of Lionel Hutz-clone would take on such a case (apparently her name is Henriette Hillestad Thune)? It's not as if they were forced to attend this school, and they definitely knew they were cheating. Considering how they compunded this by admitting to guilt in national media suggests that Hillestad Thune might be among the worst legal minds ever. Unless, that is, she manages to win, in which case BI and its lawyers ought to spontaneously self-combust from the shame.
In the aforementioned piece, three preppy (well; duh) students are quoted with such gems as "I think the rules are too strict. What's most important is to learn, and there is no reason to uphold such strict guidelines" (Camilla Aldén). Other quotes suggest that the only reason the number of students caught cheating was so low, was that the school didn't bother to check properly.
It's really bad that the students cheated, but even worse that they lack the moral fibres to admit they did something wrong and hence accept their punishment. In my opinion, they should have been completely expelled, and forbidden from ever working in the field of finance again. After all, these students are going to be working with other people's money when they graduate - either as personal financial consultants, or within corporations, and they have clearly demonstrated that a) they have no qualms about cheating, and b) even faced with the fact that they cheated, they don't find anything wrong with it. Is that the kind of people you want working with - potentially - the budget in your company or your personal finances?
Conceptually, this is the same as allowing convicted pedophiles to work in a kindergarten.
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Oh come on, Wilhelm. Used car dealers also need economists and Finance Credit seems to lack qualified people these days. Those BI students seem to fit the bill...
...at the very least they ought to get branded and exiled or something......
Seriously, although collaborating on a home assignment is a mild form of cheating, I think to be expelled one semester is a mild punishment, and I agree that the students should just admit they had done something wrong and accept the consequences. Hopefully BI has done this fair, so that all (or almost all) of the cheaters are caught. I can understand the frustration from the students if they are just some random selected targets to set an example.
But I do hope that the rumour of those cheaters spread out in the finance community here in Norway, so that cheaters at least would have a hard time getting a decent job. That would be the most fitting punishment.
I think it whether or not "collaborating" (which we all know is code for cooking/avskriving, where one person does one question and so on) is a mild form for cheating depends on the context. Here, the course in question was accounting (bedøk), so they essentially practice cheating in a real-world scenario. As opposed to cutting the last corner on the Cooper test in phys ed, for example.....
This is one of the topics closest to what they're actually gonna do when they get a job (which they hopefully don't), and so this is quite serious.
I can't imagine that BI hasn't done a thourough job with this, though, being as how students' rights are very well preserved when it comes to exam results and so on. To accuse and punish 82 students kind of gives away that they've got plenty of backing. Otherwise, that loser from "I Can't believe it's a Law Firm" is gonna win her first case.
I think we agree on the seriousness of the cheat, and that BI has issued a mild punishment.
My only concern is that BI hasn't caught all the cheaters. As you said, the students' rights are very well preserved, and theoretical it could be more students at BI that are just slightly better cheaters which got away with it. That's unfair both the cheaters that did get caught (no sympathy, though), but mostly for the students that actually makes an effort.
On a side note: When 82 students delivered more or less the same assignment (as MIGHT be the case here), did they think that nobody was going to notice?
I do hope that the rumour of those cheaters spread out in the finance community here in Norway, so that cheaters at least would have a hard time getting a decent job. That would be the most fitting punishment.
Seems I was hoping for too much. According to professional head-hunters, the BI students will probably not have any problem getting a job.
Not sure whether they cared or worried that they'd be caught, but they were idiots fo' sho'. What they did was forward an Excel-sheet (++) from the first student to the next, etc. And guess what; the name of the author appears as info even when you open it. And it's kind of strange that 82 people submit an Excel-file authored by the same student on induhvidual assignments.
It sucks that they'll probably get a job without any beef, though.
...and the guy who called the students on their attitudes and actually fell they should be punished has been banned from teaching at BI by the principal...
http://www.dn.no/forsiden/naringsliv/article539974.ece?WT.svl=article_title
Damn multiple-choice monkeys.
Pretty unbelievable that headhunters for major corporations don't care, though. The readers' comments were pretty interesting. Plenty of current and former accounting (BI) students who feel that this is no big deal, as this is normal practice.
Second-rate, wannabe-NHH graduates.
Dammit, Anders - the link you posted was from 2005..........
With the same people involved. Seems like this is a biannual event at BI...
Of course, this years cheating students really proves Aage Sending's point in that article about lazy and cheating students.
Yeah; with that biannual event strangely coinciding with their exams, for some strange reason.
Monster professionalism
Let's dig up this post in 2009!
Just to check if Aage Sending is still at it and the new students equally pissed as this years...
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