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From: ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Student and Course Integrity
Message-ID: <885@quintus.UUCP>
Date: 19 Dec 88 04:20:19 GMT
References: <1131@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu> <1887@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> <859@quintus.UUCP> <9940@quacky.mips.COM> <871@quintus.UUCP> <19006@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
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Reply-To: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc.
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In article <19006@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> verma@cs.ucla.edu (Rodent of Darkness) writes:
>In article <871@quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>>... So it is to the advantage of the less capable student to know
>>which of his fellow students are in fact more capable in that subject.
				   ^^^^^^^
>	Only a complete idiot would need to consult a grade sheet to find
>	another student who is able to help him/her.

Read minds, do you?  Always know when someone _really_ knows the subject
and when they just talk convincingly?  Know exactly how helpful a foreign
student who doesn't say much in class because his English pronunciation
isn't very good would be?  Spoken in depth with everyone in all your
classes before the first assignment already?  From your superhuman perspective
no doubt most mortals do seem like complete idiots.  [For the record, I was
always on the help_ing_ end, not the help_ed_ end.]

I've had mail from someone who thinks that nobody should even know whether
you passed or failed, and someone suggested in this newsgroup that other
students might sabotage good students if they knew who they were (I guess
the potential saboteurs must be "complete idiots" or they would not "need
to consult a grade sheet to find another student who is" worth sabotaging).
I guess this must be a bellum omnia contra omnes society after all.  Why
would anyone try to sabotage another student?  There's nothing in it for
the saboteur.

I've spoken with a Stanford lecturer who claims that the legal limits on
what can be disclosed about a student (a) go further _within_ the faculty
of a University than had been plain in this newsgroup -- so some of my
arguments were unfounded -- and (b) make it harder for the faculty to
legally co-operate in the students' interests.

Oh well, I'll be off the net tomorrow, so I shan't be able to continue
this discussion.  Thanks for tolerating the silly questions of an outlander.