UF CISE Email is Leveling the Playing Field

There is usually a huge advantage to obtaining solutions to homework questions from previous years. This is a an advantage to joining fraternities and other social circles.  While students who were outside of these groups struggle to complete assignments, the people with the previous answer sets would be studying the solutions. This puts a large body of students at a disadvantage. I know there are similar practices in Medical and Dental schools.

Today, I was proud to receive an email from our department chair that encourages professors to post solutions from previous semesters to make the playing ground a little more level.

Several years ago, the CISE faculty agreed to post all assigned coursework (homeworks, exams, solutions, etc) on course Web sites so as to level the playing field for our students. You will recall that we were getting several complaints about some students having access to past course material gathered by their friends/fraternities/sororities while other students were denied such access. Unfortunately, many of us have not implemented this decision. Reuse of past assignment questions, projects, exam question etc. encourages cheating and gives some students an unfair advantage over other students.

I urge everyone to implement the decision made by the CISE faculty several years ago to post all couse work along with solutions. We need to level the playing field for our students. At the very least, please do not reuse assessment instruments.

This is a step in the right direction to preserve quality of graduating students. The reuse of homework/exams is a likely reason Jeff Atwood says so many programmers can't program.