… than accounts of mandatory online ethics exams at universities. I’ve covered these exams on this blog for years, and their description is always a riot.
Take a look at this, from Western Illinois University. Read all the way through to the end, because the last line’s the best.
It’s that time of year again. If you happen to work for Western Illinois University in any way, shape or form, you must complete an ethics course online by Nov. 16.
In six years I’ve taken many different versions of this dreaded test, ranging in length anywhere from 15 to 90 minutes. The “course” was always a technicality, providing very shallow imaginary situations from which we must draw conclusions.
Yet every other time I took this course, it was followed by a test. Not this year! After procrastinating as much as possible I completed this obligation yesterday, and much to my surprise, it was not followed by a test of any kind.
Just to clarify, I sat through 74 pages of hypothetical scenarios, entering my most random haphazard guess, and grazed through every answer, expecting a test at the end. Needless to say I answered quite a few of them incorrectly, with no penalty.
Without a test at the close of this year’s ethics training, I am concerned. In my mind, the test was the only portion of the “course” that forced employees to retain this information. Perhaps the training writers are banking on the fact that you expect a test.
I hate to throw this out there, but I know someone has already figured it out: this training procedure allows for students and employees to pick any random answer and click the next page arrow without reading.
Yet again we’re concentrating on standardization and completion above learning. I have half a mind to report to my local ethics officer that this test is unethical…
I’m concerned about any institution that deems this a “course” of ethics. This is no course at all, no one’s learning, and certainly no one will retain the information. You’d think we’d tighten up this policy, since we had to remove our ethics officer this year for engaging in unethical activities.
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The author is Sara Gregory.
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Unsurprisingly, Illinois — arguably our most corrupt state — has also for decades been the most mandatory-online-ethics-quiz enthusiastic. Rod Blagojevich, for instance, insisted on them.
November 12th, 2009 at 9:23PM
I wasted an entire day trying to get out of HIPPA training. I have no patients records and never will. It was mandated that "everyone" will take HIPPA training in my unit. Finally, the nice young man at the help desk suggested: Just run through the course as fast as you can and take the test. You will probably pass.
I did.
(What a farce.)
November 12th, 2009 at 11:01PM
We’ve noticed that our "official certificates of completion," or whatever the hell they’re called, have gotten smaller and simpler over the last few years. We were also delighted to note that all of the Illinois university presidents signed a statement urging employees to take the test seriously (the statement was one of the first of the 74 pages). Those presidents included B. Joseph White, who was forced to resign as University of Illinois’ president because of the favoritism in admissions scandal, and Glen Poshard, SIU president, who was credibly accused of plagiarizing both his master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation.
The next thing we have to deal with is the state’s attempt to make all state employees, including professors, fill out time sheets saying what we’re doing every fifteen minutes. I’m serious.
November 12th, 2009 at 11:23PM
We have to do 2 hours of mandatory sexual harassment training. I figured out that you just had to have the website open for two hours. Since the "course" took about 45 minutes, I just would stop and get a cup of coffee, or read a book, or whatever to take two hours. Sigh.
November 12th, 2009 at 11:59PM
Susan’s response is representative of the deception the ethics training brings out in people. Somebody in Springfield was monitoring the time each professor spent on the training. A few colleagues who blitzed through the screens too rapidly, according to the stop-watch holders, received a special remediation packet that they had to complete and return before they could be certified as trained for that year.
The next year, advice about leaving screens open, so as to give the impression of having put enough time in, was all over campus. I don’t know that we’re any more ethical for it. We pretend to be trained, they pretend to certify us?
Each year’s screens include one or two on accurate time reporting, although the time sheets have not yet made their way to my office. (I’m now eligible for my pension: that might be the Hank Rearden moment.)
November 13th, 2011 at 8:02AM
[…] University. A person at Western Illinois University testified to the effectiveness of the program here. She pointed out (as have zillions of others who’ve testified about similar programs) that the […]