more bad news for duke

[dukie8]

this isn't really basketball related but i don't know where else to post it:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aHRf60iI4Y20

i was blasted with emails at work today and am surprised that nobody has mentioned it on here. it's tough to tell what went on but i am glad that duke is taking the high road. it would have been easy to sweep under the rug and avoid the additional negative press it has generated.

[SeattleIrish]

dukie8:

I'm unclear on just what the offense was. At one point the article states:

[link]In 2005, the Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management and others rejected 150 applicants who tapped into an online database to see if they had been accepted. [/link]

In another section it states:

[link]The course professor noticed similarities in answers given by some students on a take-home exam, Hemmerich said. [/link]

Can anyone share a little more information on this? The article was very vague.

thanks,

s.i.

[JBDuke]

And that's our own Boswell quoted extensively in the article. I'm sure this is NOT how he would prefer to have his name in the paper...

[hurleyfor3]

If the students really did cheat, and received their punishment after a compeletly fair trial, I'd call that good news for Duke. It sure beats the way Duke has handled similar matters recently.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Can anyone share a little more information on this? The article was very vague.

thanks,

s.i.

I don't know many of the details, but on the radio I heard something akin to how a number of students collaborated on a take-home test when they were clearly informed that there was to be no collaboration.

Here's a bit more information (though it's not too detailed either).

[dukie8]

dukie8:

I'm unclear on just what the offense was. At one point the article states:

[link]In 2005, the Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management and others rejected 150 applicants who tapped into an online database to see if they had been accepted. [/link]

In another section it states:

[link]The course professor noticed similarities in answers given by some students on a take-home exam, Hemmerich said. [/link]

Can anyone share a little more information on this? The article was very vague.

thanks,

s.i.

it sounds like they were collaborating on a take-home exam:

"The course professor noticed similarities in answers given by some students on a take-home exam, Hemmerich said."

i was hoping someone closer to the action could some light on it. i'm sure that fuqua is swirling and everyone there knows what went on (almost 10% of the class got taken down).

[freedevil]

Alluding to the culture of "I must get a good grade or else" that has affected many schools does seem to suggest that a lot of kids knew what was going on. I hope it wasn't just the professor noting similar answers that unveiled this, I would hope some students would have the decency to turn these other kids in.

[hc5duke]

http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/mbacheat_1.html

The exact same thing happened in my MEM program, except nobody got caught.

[dukemomLA]

I don't know why you consider this such bad news. Yes, it sucks that MBA candidates resort to cheating. HOWEVER, I felt the article was actually favorable to Duke. It made it clear that this issue was handled quickly and decisively. It also noted that Duke -- more than other schools -- take their honor code seriously!

[dukeENG2003]

http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/mbacheat_1.html

The exact same thing happened in my MEM program, except nobody got caught.

That saddens me to hear as a class of 2004 MEM graduate. Cheating was NOT a prevelant part of the program when I was there. Heck, most of us found the business classes to be so easy relative to the graduate level engineering courses we were taking, we didn't even think of cheating in them.

[devilmon]

As a Fuqua alum, I am disappointed. However, it reflects positively on our administration. We had a similar incident back in 2001, but there were not as many students involved.

BTW, it was front page news in local papers in Durham on Friday of last week.

[CMS2478]

Was it some sort of writing test??? Because if it was matching/multiple choice/true false/fill in the blank.......I don't know if they could have really enforced the ruling. I was accused of cheating in my Biology class at ECU bc myself and another girl had similar answers on a multiple choice test. But we both had the right answers so what does that prove??? NOTHING!!! I'm guessing it had to be essay questions or something where it would be completely obvious.

By the way I am a teacher and you give a take home exam and tell them not to collaborate......YEAH RIGHT!!!

[cspan37421]

Hi. Long-time lurker, first-time poster.

Business Week posted an article entitled, "Duke MBAs Fail Ethics Test". What is wrong with that title? Only that the students were not yet MBAs. So rather than reporting that Duke stopped a bunch of cheaters from progressing through business school, they gave the impression that Duke's MBA graduates are unethical.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the article closes with some fawning words for UNC's b-school honor council.

As they say, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

The URL is

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools...430_110466.htm

I encourage DBR readers to consider posting a comment on the BW site as I have done. It has not yet been approved and posted, though.

[SMO]

I've completed take home exams during undergrad and at Fuqua. The expectation is, and should be, that no one cheats. That's why there's an honor code. You think this professor will have to worry about the next time s/he gives a take home exam after these people were busted??

Elementary through high school might be a different story, but once a student chooses to attend a school with an honor code we should expect them to adhere to it.

Was it some sort of writing test??? Because if it was matching/multiple choice/true false/fill in the blank.......I don't know if they could have really enforced the ruling. I was accused of cheating in my Biology class at ECU bc myself and another girl had similar answers on a multiple choice test. But we both had the right answers so what does that prove??? NOTHING!!! I'm guessing it had to be essay questions or something where it would be completely obvious.

By the way I am a teacher and you give a take home exam and tell them not to collaborate......YEAH RIGHT!!!

[hc5duke]

That saddens me to hear as a class of 2004 MEM graduate. Cheating was NOT a prevelant part of the program when I was there. Heck, most of us found the business classes to be so easy relative to the graduate level engineering courses we were taking, we didn't even think of cheating in them.

I was also class of 2004 MEM. Just to give you a couple examples, the finance class had take-home exams that the prof encouraged us to work in gruops of 2-3 (I think), but no more. IIRC about a third or close to half of the class (out of about 40) ended up working on it together, just not all at the same time. Marketing had software simulation (Pharmasim?) where teams were supposed to simulate one time-frame per week (I think). Many of the teams I talked to ran multiple simulations (which was clearly forbidden, but there was no way to tell), and only kept the one that gave the best results. I'm not saying cheating was rampant, but it did happen, with majority of the students.

[dukeENG2003]

pharmasim I know people used a couple iterations, but if I remember correctly, there was at least some limitation to the number you could run (I wanna say 10), so its not like you could optimize, you at least learned something from the cause and effect even if you WERE cheating. . .

And I can't believe people cheated on the finance exams, that class was so ridiculously easy, why did they need to? (I was the guy always falling asleep in the back row of that class, if I even bothered to make it to class that day, needless to say, Skender wasn't a big fan of me. . .)

[CMS2478]

I've completed take home exams during undergrad and at Fuqua. The expectation is, and should be, that no one cheats. That's why there's an honor code. You think this professor will have to worry about the next time s/he gives a take home exam after these people were busted??

Elementary through high school might be a different story, but once a student chooses to attend a school with an honor code we should expect them to adhere to it.

BUT.......not everybody in the world is 100% honest!!

[hurleyfor3]

I didn't see this already posted to the off-topic board. Feel free to delete.

[hurleyfor3]

New Bloomberg article (May 2) about how much Duke sucks:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...8lo&refer=home

And it doesn't even mention sucking in basketball.

[bird]

NPR aired a blurb during its news summaries this morning (May 2). An article also appeared in my morning paper.

It isn't paranoid if they are really out to get you.

Oh, and thanks Nifong.