Probe into how student got answers before exam
Date Published: 16-Dec-2010
By Dara Bradley
The Governing Body of Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) is set to conduct an investigation into a student who obtained an instructor’s manual – which contained model answers to assessment questions – and used the material to cheat in an assignment.
The Galway City Tribune can reveal that a Masters student in the School of Business and Engineering was found guilty of plagiarising a course assignment – passing off someone else’s work as their own – which accounted for a significant percentage of the final year mark.
The student obtained a copy of the instructor’s manual used by lecturers only, which provides model answers to questions contained in continuous assignments handed out as part of a post-graduate degree course, and used this nefariously-obtained material in a case study presentation. The student escaped serious punishment and graduated earlier this year.
The instructor’s manual which contained suggested answers, is legitimately accessible by academic staff only. The Galway City Tribune understands that just a handful of lecturers in GMIT have access to this particular manual.
A password and GMIT email address is needed to obtain the access code to the answers in the instructor’s manual, which is accessible on the internet.
In a statement to this newspaper, GMIT confirmed that a post graduate student was found to have plagiarised an assignment using an instructor’s manual.
GMIT added that “How the student . . . acquired the information is unknown.”
Asked if it had conducted an investigation into whether or not a lecturer sought and nefariously obtained access to the instructor’s manual and supplied this material to the student, GMIT said “this does not arise”.
The Galway City Tribune has spoken to the publisher of the instructor’s manual who confirmed the incident could compromise the integrity of its system and is being treated as a serious breach of security.
For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.