homework solution site

homework solution site

Ethical Considerations in Using Homework Solution Sites

1. Introduction to Homework Solution Sites

Homework solution sites (HSSs) provide textbook and homework exercise solutions that instructors have assigned to their students, without the consent of instructors. We examine and reply to the instructors’ concerns about academic dishonesty, grade inflation, their pedagogical approach, salaries, and book contracts. HSSs’ concerns include the violation of access restrictions, fair use of copyrighted material, student attendance, the amount paid for their book, and library subscriptions. HSSs invite instructors to order a “Desk Copy” or to adopt their book without addressing the curse of the high cost of textbooks. The chapters provide real-world questions and online search policy guidelines (OSPGs) for students, instructors, and HSSs. For example, students ask: What is necessary to understand I.P. law, fair use, and Section 107? Instructors ask: What is the common law, Constitution, Statute, and where are the tools to determine if fair use is a harbinger of the Constitution’s purpose and copyright law? HSSs ask: Where can the instructor’s prescribed solution to the student’s homework exercises be located on the Internet?

Homework solution sites (HSSs) provide textbook and homework exercise solutions that instructors have assigned to their students, without the consent of instructors. HSSs’ concern about the number of users of the instructors’ solution manual (IM) has provoked a correspondingly large number of desist letters from I.P. lawyers. However, HSSs access the IMs’ price, often below market, and its restricted use. The IM price and restrictions provoked us to exchange the lexicon of violations with fair use. Consequently, we exchanged our Chap. 2’s four objectives for a single guideline – Instructors do not prescribe the use of an IM, except for a descriptive, observational, experiential, social learning exercise for non-commercial educational use purposes. As a result, the IM may be freely discussed, exchanged, and used by non-commercial parties. To reiterate this Chap. 12 policy, IMs are copyrighted for instructors’ educational use only. High quality legal decisions favor the progress of knowledge.

2. Ethical Implications of Using Homework Solution Sites

Homework is an intrinsic part of any educational program and is carried out for specific purposes, the most common being designed to consolidate and enhance the student’s skills and abilities, to motivate and encourage students to be responsible for their learning, and to prepare students for topics that will be developed in the classroom. Furthermore, homework stimulates different intellectual abilities, refines cognitive strategies, improves the student’s mastery of the subject matter, and promotes a sense of responsibility for their own learning. It is an opportunity for students to apply and practice what they have learned and to prepare for new learning experiences. Additionally, homework reinforces and reviews the content covered in class, and it stimulates the search for information, critical thinking, creativity, and exploration of knowledge, while preparing students for the future lives that they will lead. Students resolve exercises, practice concepts and use the textbooks and other educational materials when they are at home, and the teacher should monitor them.

This, however, requires ethical conduct, i.e. the student should resolve the exercises according to his/her own knowledge and abilities, even to show in class that they are reacting correctly whenever asked to resolve an exercise. The practice of copying homework from colleagues, using commercial banks, or paying someone to resolve and/or execute a pre-assigned work project is not ethical. Hassling to resolve the more complex issues is justified, as long as the learning takes place, but transferring quality solutions to another person is not, as it violates the honest relationship between the duty assigned and its fulfillment.

3. Academic Integrity Policies and Consequences

The most common response of educational institutions to concerns about cheating has been to provide a handout specifically on the ethical norms of the institution. In some cases, the educational institution may adopt a vocational law. The term used to denote this activity varies across institutions, including law or academic integrity. Recognizing that in these large classes, many graduates will work in industries where the use of information obtained from a brief search on the web is the norm, some institutions have tried to make a distinction that they see as important. They encourage the use of external sources in these capstone courses or assignments that have adopted the honor code model. These approaches have had successes; however, it appears that feeling cheated because other students have an unfair advantage is a strong motivator for not honoring the academic integrity code. Without this feeling, even confirming some students’ observations, it is difficult to persuade the students to behave ethically.

4. Strategies for Promoting Academic Honesty

Aside from providing awareness activities for students, educators can incorporate strategies to promote academic honesty into their teaching practices. For example, whenever possible, we can design assignments so that there cannot be a single correct answer for all students. Instructors can substitute exams, laboratory reports, and essays for multiple-choice tests, short answer or longer response questions that require original thought, and oral reports where appropriate.

Another practice that can discourage cheating is to caution against posting online solutions or suggesting “original” questions, organized in such a way that answer keys will not be available, according to University of Iowa COLT Director Lila Roberts Davis. By creating assignments with a minimum score attached and/or grading homework (locking in student effort) prior to exams and/or requiring subsequent discussions of the answers, educational institutions can further promote academic honesty. Other proposed academic practices include increasing faculty knowledge of their class, increasing faculty-student interaction, and enforcing current institutional policies.

Additional academic dishonesty prevention and detection methods mentioned by Koro-Ljungberg, McDougall, and Ewing (2007) include a mix of traditional and new technologies: providing data to make the case for learning with integrity. In summary, there are numerous ways to promote ethical behavior in this digital age, but these strategies will need to be ongoing. This general movement in moral education involves an ongoing, essential dialogue – well-designed and involving all parties (parents, institutions, teachers, students, accrediting agencies, employers, etc). At The University of Texas at Austin, subtle and indirect messaging is being increased through various communication and academic material distribution systems.

5. Conclusion and Recommendations

This study sought to investigate the collective advantages and limitations of homework solution websites on students’ academic performance in the UAE. While some previous studies have shown some positive impacts of these websites, others have indicated the negative effects and contradicted the positive outcomes. With the increasing number of students using these sites, educators’ worries and questions regarding the effect that such exposure may have on their students’ academic achievements are reasonable. The study findings identified such concerns by highlighting three core learning domains that could be affected, namely students’ ability to manage their time effectively, to improve their academic performance, and to understand the homework solutions provided.

A dysfunctional behavior could potentially occur in the “Education 2.0” era, where both advantages and limitations are visible; the challenge here is on how schools and educators can harness the reminder to satisfy the learning needs of the tech-savvy student community. The findings can be used in the development of the research process to better understand the factors responsible for students’ exposure to homework solution websites. It also offers an opportunity for a deeper exploration into the ethical challenges that homework solution websites represent for both students and academic institutions, as well as highlighting issues in teaching practices and their impact on them. We identified that a combination of heavier workload, lack of understanding of the homework topics, lack of class time and guidance from teachers, and exposure to the site’s benefits were the primary reasons for students’ satisfaction with using homework solution websites to obtain their homework solutions.