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I've anecdotes from two university lecturers on different courses. They both want some form of external moderation. its what happens for Postgraduate degrees af

I've anecdotes from two university lecturers on different courses. They both want some form of external moderation. its what happens for Postgraduate degrees after all. What they report is horrifying: * Essay writing skills are lacking, "its at GCSE level" * Students contesting any form of criticism - they go via the official channels to argue why they should get a good grade. All schools are tied up in multiple tribunals with existing staff. Often its easier just to pass the student. * In some cases, students are SUING the university for poor grades * Plagiarism is commonplace. There is an automated plagiarism detection mechanism for electronic submissions - but they are turned off or ignored as it's so rampant. People literally copying from Wikipedia or copy and pasting from papers to make their own work. Wikipedia copying is especially used for definitions, e.g. "Hacker News is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship...." * Students don't see that their education is also their own responsibility, and see it as a purchase. Give me what I pay for. * Students who don't turn up to classes and seminars demand the same grades as those who do. * Hundreds of students email lecturers asking for help with their work (much more numbers and frequency than in the past). They both despair as they see education standards falling, and theres not much they can do. They don't want to be sued by the students, nor do they want to spend all their time in tribunals, they are educators first. They see their own institution as being of very poor quality. To me - I would look at a league table of education quality for UK universities. There isn't one, you cant compare. Previously a good chance of good education was the research output of a department, or the references of the teachers. But this, as my associates report don't mean anything anymore.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
>People literally copying from Wikipedia or copy and pasting from papers to make their own work. // My lad is just in UK high-school but I'm surprised at how homework is set with no provision of resources and no mention of plagiarism or need to cite sources. The kids are basically expected to find their own sources, which is ridiculous - making them trust whatever Google gives them. Once they've been inculcated into the notion that education resides in googling and cutting and pasting, without even reading the content, then it's hard to establish a good research ethic. On top of this the teachers aren't even teaching good use of online search, or providing access to primary source material that gets referenced. It's really dire. Textbooks have their problems but ...
- vertex-four 9y ago
  In FE college, we had an occasional class (as part of something else, can't remember what) that explained how to use the Internet to research properly, determine trustworthiness, and cite sources, and also how to use the library at a basic level. I'd assume that sixth-form colleges in England and their equivalent elsewhere do the same - but perhaps it's too late by then?
  - keithpeter 9y ago
    I can reassure you that 'research methods' courses are mandatory for all students in the vocational only FE college that I do some teaching in. Taught by LRC staff. The plagiarism checker is active as well. Most of the level 3 award tutors set a small assignment within the first few weeks of the course to assess writing level and catch any issues like dyslexia &c.
- thedonkeycometh 9y ago
  My boys homework doesn't have a reminder about plagiarism or cheating, but his school handbook does. We can't blame the teachers, when the children aren't going to libraries to do their homework and its not the responsibility of the teacher to show them how to use a search engine. They'll know already, its just they'll blame everyone but themselves for their poor attempts.
- jbob2000 9y ago
  Funnily enough, this kinda matches how most people do their jobs now. "Just google it" is the solution to many problems in business. It's probably not the best long term strategy, but then again, neither is the stock market...
  - imtringued 9y ago
    I think you got that backwards. The stockmarket is a bad short term investment but a good long term investment.
maze-le 9y ago
2 of my friends work in HR. They tell me, that they see a university degree not as a valuable certification criterion on its own. I mean, the tech industry has always been a bit special in this regard. There are lots of excellent autodidact programmers, that never saw a university and there are a number of people that have specialized in getting good grades, but could not implement 10 lines on their own. Most recruiters are aware of that fact, thats why we have to do stupid whiteboard interviews for senior developer jobs. I suspect, that with the further erosion of principles and standards of universities, this mindset will creep into other domains as well.
- drharby 9y ago
  If people are considering degree marks for a senior role, they have big things to worry about than if their candidate can whiteboard
peoplewindow 9y ago
That makes it sound like it's all the students fault. I studied CS at a top tier UK university (not Oxbridge but a tier below). The course was a mess. The professors were useless, often didn't understand their own subjects, marking was random and arbitrary, most of them quite obviously saw teaching as a chore to be disposed of as quickly as possible and many failed hard at even basic principles of teaching, like "if you set coursework, students should all have the same amount of time to complete it in". There was no effective way for students to complain or get anything fixed. The department ran a student/professor relationships council or something which was a joke, the students on it had volunteered mostly to suck up to the staff and didn't have any idea how bad the teaching was or how hard they were getting stiffed. If universities were _actually_ real businesses I'd have been furious and demanded my money back, but they aren't so what can you do? I just tell people not to go to university at all these days.
senorjazz 9y ago
> Plagiarism is commonplace. There is an automated plagiarism detection mechanism for electronic submissions - but they are turned off or ignored as it's so rampant. People literally copying from Wikipedia or copy and pasting from papers to make their own work. this isn't new. People were copying from wikipedia 18+ years ago I can assure you ahem
jamessb 9y ago
> They both want some form of external moderation. its what happens for Postgraduate degrees after all. Undergraduate university examinations in the UK already have external examiners [1]. For the national guidance, see Chapter B7 of the QAA's Quality Code [2]. This states: > External examiners are not normally responsible for, or involved in, the assessment of individual students to the extent that they do not carry out marking of assessed work. However, to fulfil their role external examiners view student work, which ranges from reading essays or examination scripts to viewing performances (live or recorded) or artefacts. The volume of assessment generally means that an external examiner is unlikely to be able to view all the assessed work unless the cohort is small. Samples are of sufficient size to enable him/her to form a view as to whether the internal marking has properly assessed student performance against the appropriate standards. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_examiner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_examiner [2]: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/assuring-standards-and-quality/the-quality-code/quality-code-part-b http://www.qaa.ac.uk/assuring-standards-and-quality/the-qual...
eesmith 9y ago
"Students contesting any form of criticism ... In some cases, students are SUING the university for poor grades ... Plagiarism is commonplace" Anecdotally I heard the same stories 25 years ago when I was at university.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

>People literally copying from Wikipedia or copy and pasting from papers to make their own work. // My lad is just in UK high-school but I'm surprised at how homework is set with no provision of resources and no mention of plagiarism or need to cite sources. The kids are basically expected to find their own sources, which is ridiculous - making them trust whatever Google gives them. Once they've been inculcated into the notion that education resides in googling and cutting and pasting, without even reading the content, then it's hard to establish a good research ethic. On top of this the teachers aren't even teaching good use of online search, or providing access to primary source material that gets referenced. It's really dire. Textbooks have their problems but ...

vertex-four 9y ago
In FE college, we had an occasional class (as part of something else, can't remember what) that explained how to use the Internet to research properly, determine trustworthiness, and cite sources, and also how to use the library at a basic level. I'd assume that sixth-form colleges in England and their equivalent elsewhere do the same - but perhaps it's too late by then?
- keithpeter 9y ago
  I can reassure you that 'research methods' courses are mandatory for all students in the vocational only FE college that I do some teaching in. Taught by LRC staff. The plagiarism checker is active as well. Most of the level 3 award tutors set a small assignment within the first few weeks of the course to assess writing level and catch any issues like dyslexia &c.
thedonkeycometh 9y ago
My boys homework doesn't have a reminder about plagiarism or cheating, but his school handbook does. We can't blame the teachers, when the children aren't going to libraries to do their homework and its not the responsibility of the teacher to show them how to use a search engine. They'll know already, its just they'll blame everyone but themselves for their poor attempts.
jbob2000 9y ago
Funnily enough, this kinda matches how most people do their jobs now. "Just google it" is the solution to many problems in business. It's probably not the best long term strategy, but then again, neither is the stock market...
- imtringued 9y ago
  I think you got that backwards. The stockmarket is a bad short term investment but a good long term investment.

maze-le 9y ago

2 of my friends work in HR. They tell me, that they see a university degree not as a valuable certification criterion on its own. I mean, the tech industry has always been a bit special in this regard. There are lots of excellent autodidact programmers, that never saw a university and there are a number of people that have specialized in getting good grades, but could not implement 10 lines on their own. Most recruiters are aware of that fact, thats why we have to do stupid whiteboard interviews for senior developer jobs. I suspect, that with the further erosion of principles and standards of universities, this mindset will creep into other domains as well.

drharby 9y ago
If people are considering degree marks for a senior role, they have big things to worry about than if their candidate can whiteboard

peoplewindow 9y ago

That makes it sound like it's all the students fault. I studied CS at a top tier UK university (not Oxbridge but a tier below). The course was a mess. The professors were useless, often didn't understand their own subjects, marking was random and arbitrary, most of them quite obviously saw teaching as a chore to be disposed of as quickly as possible and many failed hard at even basic principles of teaching, like "if you set coursework, students should all have the same amount of time to complete it in". There was no effective way for students to complain or get anything fixed. The department ran a student/professor relationships council or something which was a joke, the students on it had volunteered mostly to suck up to the staff and didn't have any idea how bad the teaching was or how hard they were getting stiffed. If universities were _actually_ real businesses I'd have been furious and demanded my money back, but they aren't so what can you do? I just tell people not to go to university at all these days.

senorjazz 9y ago

> Plagiarism is commonplace. There is an automated plagiarism detection mechanism for electronic submissions - but they are turned off or ignored as it's so rampant. People literally copying from Wikipedia or copy and pasting from papers to make their own work. this isn't new. People were copying from wikipedia 18+ years ago I can assure you ahem

jamessb 9y ago

> They both want some form of external moderation. its what happens for Postgraduate degrees after all. Undergraduate university examinations in the UK already have external examiners [1]. For the national guidance, see Chapter B7 of the QAA's Quality Code [2]. This states: > External examiners are not normally responsible for, or involved in, the assessment of individual students to the extent that they do not carry out marking of assessed work. However, to fulfil their role external examiners view student work, which ranges from reading essays or examination scripts to viewing performances (live or recorded) or artefacts. The volume of assessment generally means that an external examiner is unlikely to be able to view all the assessed work unless the cohort is small. Samples are of sufficient size to enable him/her to form a view as to whether the internal marking has properly assessed student performance against the appropriate standards. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_examiner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_examiner [2]: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/assuring-standards-and-quality/the-quality-code/quality-code-part-b http://www.qaa.ac.uk/assuring-standards-and-quality/the-qual...

eesmith 9y ago

"Students contesting any form of criticism ... In some cases, students are SUING the university for poor grades ... Plagiarism is commonplace" Anecdotally I heard the same stories 25 years ago when I was at university.