This is an archived page. Images and links on this page may not work. Please visit the main page for the latest updates.

 
 
 
Read my book, TEACHING BEAUTY IN DeLILLO, WOOLF, AND MERRILL (Palgrave Macmillan; forthcoming), co-authored with Jennifer Green-Lewis. VISIT MY BRANCH CAMPUS AT INSIDE HIGHER ED





UD is...
"Salty." (Scott McLemee)
"Unvarnished." (Phi Beta Cons)
"Splendidly splenetic." (Culture Industry)
"Except for University Diaries, most academic blogs are tedious."
(Rate Your Students)
"I think of Soltan as the Maureen Dowd of the blogosphere,
except that Maureen Dowd is kind of a wrecking ball of a writer,
and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
politics, but she's pretty fabulous, so who gives a damn?"
(Tenured Radical)

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Online Courses:
A Boon to University Sports





Sure, you can go to the major news outlets for the barebones narrative of the nation's latest large-scale athletic cheating scandal, but why not come to UD, where you will be provided, free of charge, what anthropologists call a thick description?

Begin with this editorial last year in a Florida newspaper:




'...Florida State dropped from 110th on the overall [US News and World Report] list to 112th. USF stayed in the third tier - which includes schools ranked below 125th - which is disappointing considering the university's potential and its location in a dynamic, growing region.

Surely we're better than 125th - aren't we?

University of Central Florida joined USF in the third tier, which showed progress since it had been in the fourth tier.

But with all due respect to UCF's efforts, the state's showing in U.S. News' rankings was pathetic. Florida, after all, is the fourth largest state in the nation.'





Yes, there's Florida State, barely making it out of the third tier... a really bad university, though somewhat lost in the tropical welter of bad Florida universities... Still, FSU has sports galore, and that's what Floridians care about. And not just the citizens of the state, but the very faculty and staff of the school, some of whom have discovered the advantages of online learning:




'...Two athletic department academic assistance employees have resigned and 23 Florida State University athletes were implicated in cheating on tests given over the Internet, school officials said Wednesday.

Florida State University President T.K. Wetherell [a veteran jock-sniffer] said athletes "across the board, in every sport" were involved on varying levels.

Wetherell ordered an investigation by the university's Office of Audit Services in May after receiving information that the learning specialist had directed one athlete to take an online quiz for another and then provided the answers.

The student who took the test was not enrolled in the class and reported what happened to his athletics academic adviser. Neither he nor the other athlete, who had been unaware someone else took the test for him, was disciplined, the report said.

The investigation then found the learning specialist also typed papers for five students and a tutor provided answers or other unethical assistance for online tests.

Both the learning specialist and the tutor have resigned, Wetherell said.

According to FSU's report, David P. Coury, the university's chief audit officer, conducted an investigation for which 129 FSU students and 14 employees were interviewed. It found "no conclusive evidence of a more widespread problem of similar behavior among employees in [Athletic Academic Support Services]."

Hart said Wednesday that he didn't feel it was "the appropriate time to comment" on how he thought the NCAA might discipline FSU, and added that he's hopes the university's "due diligence" counts for something.

"[It's] just one of those learning experiences," Wetherell told the university faculty and community members at the meeting. "It certainly will put a damper on things for a while."' [Strong words! Strong words!]



Another article notes that 'The testing involved a single [online] course, which was not identified. Some students from the 2007 semester indicated that it was common knowledge among the student athletes that the tutor would help with the exams in the class.'

Looks like someone at FSU has been studying the methods of the famed Thomas Petee at unaccredited Auburn University (UD removed its accreditation a few months back).... Although the details of the FSU case are somewhat baffling in their idiocy...



'[I]t was a student-athlete who came forward in March with concerns of possible misconduct.

The investigation revealed that, without the knowledge of one student-athlete, the learning specialist provided answers to an online quiz to a second student-athlete and told him to submit those answers on behalf of the first.

The second student-athlete told investigators he wouldn't have felt comfortable refusing the learning specialist because of "who she was," his "great relationship" with her and his trust in her. Five days after the incident, on March 28, he reported to his academic adviser what had happened. In short order, Wetherell was told and he ordered an investigation.


...While the report doesn't name the learning specialist, who was placed on administrative leave on April3 and resigned her position effective July5, school personnel records show that Brenda H. Monk, Ph.D., sent a one-sentence note to director of academic support Mark Meleney that she was "leaving my position" on that date.'


Weird M.O. here: You tell an athlete -- an honest person -- to cheat for another athlete.

Not just weird. I mean, how degenerate can you get? You trade on your "great relationship" with an athlete to make him cheat for you...




The genius of the piece, though, is online education:


'Each of the student-athletes was enrolled in the same online course.

"These are the facts and they are undisputed at this time," Wetherell said. "You could make a pretty good case that the faculty did not do a very good job of protecting the integrity of the test."' [More strong words from the president. UD'd be really surprised if the professor running the course didn't know about the cheating. UD assumes the course was created for purposes of cheating.]




'A consulting firm that has its roots in NCAA enforcement will help FSU deliver [its] message [to the NCAA].' [What message? The message that FSU shouldn't really be penalized because after all someone came forward, and the school investigated right away, etc. The consulting firm will charge FSU, which has its ass in a sling and isn't in a position to complain, a whole lot for this work, but I doubt there's anyone in Florida who minds this use being made of their tuition and tax dollars. It's sports, after all.]