McGill engineering professor Jeremy Cooperstock is mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore. Frustrated with unfair and inconsistent plagiarism rules at McGill, Cooperstock recently launched D-grading McGill-a website that details his experiences with cheating over 11 years at the university. His most recent accusations are damning. Two students in Cooperstock's 2007 Artificial Intelligence class "plagiarised by sharing program code on two successive [individual] assignments, collectively worth 30 per cent of their final grade." Cooperstock was asked to ignore these specific instances of plagiarism, and one of the students even had his grade raised from an F to a D by a faculty administrator. This was done through a combination of amnesties and re-evaluations, but the administrator refused to provide Cooperstock with justification for any of these steps. The student graduated thanks to his passing grade.
The Tribune understands that a confidential appeals process protects students from unfair professors, but the lack of transparency in this instance makes McGill look hypocritical. Every year, students are informed of the evils of plagiarism and warned of the consequences. We've all read the same warning paragraph on our syllabi which proudly declares McGill's dedication to academic integrity. Some of us have even been asked to waive our intellectual property rights so professors can use text-matching software such as Turnitin. For students who do honest work, it's disheartening to hear that McGill has turned a blind-eye in a straightforward case of plagiarism. Copying Wikipedia articles word-for-word doesn't seem like such a bad idea anymore.
The university's reaction to Cooperstock's allegations has been disappointing. They've refused to include him in the re-grading process or justify the steps taken to change the grades he gave his students. To make matters worse, a Faculty of Engineering administrator secretly accessed the professor's computer files to ensure he wasn't providing a reporter with confidential information. Judging by their actions, the administration seems to think that Cooperstock is the guilty party here. Much (if not all) of this controversy could have been avoided if the administrators involved had kept Cooperstock informed of the reasoning behind their decisions, and completed a proper investigation to allay his concerns.
It's clear that McGill's system for dealing with academic offences is flawed. It's troubling that faculty administrators can raise course grades without consulting professors. It's equally troubling that such a clear-cut case of sharing work on an individual assignment could go unpunished. If the administration wants to prove that their academic integrity policy isn't just hot air, they need to take Cooperstock's allegations seriously and launch a review of their procedures for dealing with plagiarism. Otherwise, academic integrity at McGill will be just another hollow ideal sacrificed for bueraucratic convenience.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Sammy Sucra
posted 9/11/08 @ 10:44 PM EST
With respect to plagiarism, there is only one thing worse than falling academic standards and that is "double" academic standards.
A colleague informed me that there is a university out west that still punishes students for plagiarism and other forms of academic misconduct. (Continued…)
Some professor
posted 9/18/08 @ 11:28 AM EST
I work at a major university in France.
On at least one occasion, as an assistant professor grading some project work, I was told by the senior professor supervising the course that I should not take into account plagiarism, unless the student confessed to it in my face. (Continued…)
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