Hi Colin,

This is a really interesting scenario.

I would agree with the others that the collaboration that took place during revision falls within perfectly acceptable bounds of study collaboration. It's definitely not collusion, nor plagiarism. Pretty clear cut, I would say. 

The students have done nothing wrong, albeit they’ve taken a bit of a gamble on an exact question they memorised coming up, and got lucky with it, but it's not as if this is something home students also don’t do.

They are also a few rows apart. If the invigilators were invigilating effectively, they would have seen there was no cheating taking place in the exam itself, so clearly there’s no case for suggesting collusion took place during the exam. 

Is there any reason your scenario had them a few places apart, rather than sitting next to each other?

Had the students been sat next each other, this could have been more problematic for the students, as it would seem more reasonable for invigilators to believe (incorrectly still) that they had missed an act of academic malpractice taking place in the exam. In such a scenario, as to whether it could be misconstrued as plagiarism or as collusion, it depends on what the invigilators believed took place.

For example, if it was believed that both students had somehow found blank exam scripts, pre-prepared their answers, and smuggled these into the exam, then this would be thought to be collusion.

If it was believed that both students had smuggled in the same source evidence, one might suspect collusion, but it would be difficult to prove that this was not a coincidence, so it’s more likely to result in (unfairly still of course) an allegation of plagiarism (or general cheating, depending on how the institution defines cheating in exams).

In theory, if one script was believed to be derivative of the other, then both collusion (for both students) and plagiarism (for the student believed to have produced the derivative work) could be mistakenly alleged.  

Yet would the invigilators actually allege any misconduct had taken place? If only because it risked calling into question their competencies as invigilators!

Regards,

Robert


________________________________________
From: learning development in higher education network <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Peter Hartley <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 07 April 2015 12:46
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Collusion?

Agree completely with Kal.
The tutor should be castigated for using such a crude assessment device! So we should congratulate the students on productive use of collaboration and punish the tutor for poor practice (or at the very least require them to work through a required reading list including Boud, Falchikov, Price et al etc.!

Best wishes
Peter


> On 7 Apr 2015, at 12:36, Kal Winston <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> My gut reaction is no, this is not collusion, but collaboration.
> We want students to discuss the material, to collaborate with each
> other...dialogue is a key feature of good learning.
> They didn't look at each other's work during the exam, and didn't
> cheat during the exam. They simply prepared effectively.
> The problem lies with the tutor... Giving an exam question that was
> too predictable, and amenable to memorization of an answer, rather
> than something requiring genuine critical thinking and application of
> knowledge to a new situation, answers for which would not be
> memorizable.
>
> On 07/04/2015, Colin Neville <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> ?Dear Colleagues
>>
>>
>> Can I try this case study out on you?  I have it in mind for an article I am
>> writing on plagiarism.  I will not quote your responses - but they will be
>> helpful in terms of anticipating a range of responses to the scenario.
>> Thanks
>>
>>
>> Colin Neville
>>
>> (retired - University of Bradford)
>>
>>
>>
>> You and your friend are students studying in Britain. You are both from a
>> country where examinations are the main way of assessing knowledge.  It is
>> common practice in your home country to anticipate what questions will be
>> presented in exams and to memorise answers to those questions.  In Britain,
>> in preparation for an exam, you and your friend do the same thing.  With
>> broad hints from tutors, and a survey of past exam papers, you anticipate
>> what questions will be asked in the forthcoming exam. You work together,
>> discussing the likely topics, and think about how and what you would write
>> in the exam. You work out and discuss together what you feel are good
>> answers to likely questions and memorize what you would write.
>>
>>
>>
>> On the day of the exam, you are seated a few rows apart from each other.  A
>> question you anticipate does appear on the exam paper, and you both write an
>> answer you have memorized.    However, when the tutor is marking the exam
>> papers, he finds the two similarly worded essays. The tutor is very
>> suspicious that you and your friend have colluded to commit plagiarism.   Is
>> the tutor right? Is this a case of collusion?
>>
>
>
> --
> Kal