College Discipline.com

Inside Higher Education reports of a website that offers students (for a fee, of course) a corrupted electronic document that they can submit to their instructor in fulfillment of an assignment.  With the average professor receiving such a document unlikely to detect that the corrupted file is a ruse, students will more often than not secure additional time to legitimately complete their work while communicating back and forth with the instructor over the inaccessible file.

Consider the following questions/requests from "dean's forms" that college and university disciplinary officers are often asked to sign as part of a student's application to law school, medical school, graduate school, or other program:

• Check one of the following: "The student has not received a judicial sanction at this institution." Or, "This student is not currently under an active judicial sanction, but has been previously sanctioned as follows." Or, "The student is currently under the following judicial sanction(s)" (from Semester at Sea).
• "Has the applicant been the subject of previous or pending disciplinary action or proceedings for misconduct?" (from Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine).

Mental health issues and threat assessment have been at the forefront of discussions at institutions of higher education across the country, with increasing attention following the Virginia Tech tragedy in 2007. While helping a “student of concern," “student at risk,” or “student in distress” is not a new concept for Student Affairs and/or other college and university personnel, in recent years, more attention has been paid to the needs of students experiencing difficulty or demonstrating behavioral concerns. As colleges and universities are charged with identifying ways to assist students with complex psychosocial needs, many campuses are creating case manager positions to identify, assess, and follow students identified as high-risk or in need of outreach and/or support.

This weekend a new "computational knowledge engine" named Wolfram|Alpha by its creator, Stephen Wolfram, went live on the Internet.  The site aims to "make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone."  Type in a mathematical equation and it solves it for you.  Type in two companies and it offers market comparisons.  Input "weather Charlotte NC July 28, 1987" and it tells you that the average temperature in Charlotte on July 28, 1987, was 81 degrees and 70% average humidity.  An introductory video showing how it works is available here.

The implications for this technology are tremendous, not only in its potential ability to facilitate learning, but also its potential to facilitate student cheating.  The availability of a resource, though, doesn't necessarily mean that it will be used inappropriately.  Faculty awareness of this new tool can serve as a prompt  to clearly communicate expectations to students regarding appropriate resources for assistance.  Instructors who find ways to embrace this technology in their courses, rather than shun its use, may find that student learning is increased.  But just as some students will copy passages from online journal articles and not cite them appropriately, a few students will also likely use Wolfram|Alpha to quickly solve a homework problem that is imminently due.

Take Wolfram|Alpha for a spin and tell us what you think.

Check out this article in The New York Times about other websites that may give students an edge over those who use traditional study methods, and some who question the ethics of this.