Are Study Groups Cheating? Ryerson Says Yes

Today, Ryerson university decided not to expel a first year engineering student for hosting a Facebook study group that was allegedly used by students to cheat on assignments. However, the university is still imposing academic penalties on the student, who will loose 20% of his year over this fiasco. You can read more details in the newspapers. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe this student has grounds for a lawsuit to get his 20% back. The whole incident also exposes who far behind the most "progressive" institutions are in this country.

Sites like Wikipedia and Facebook are popular among university students. The latter is a social networking site. Recently, many students have been setting up Facebook study groups to discuss notes and assignments without actually having to meet. Gone are the days of the long hours in the small rooms at the library, though universities haven't seemed to realize that yet. I don't use social networking sites, but I can't side with the university on this issue. It's absolutely ridiculous and a colossal waste of time on Ryerson's part. How is such a group any different from the students meeting at the library and working on the assignment together? According to them, this is cheating too but those groups aren't the ones being attacked. It's also worth noting that this particular student had only started the group and wasn't responsible for the posts in question. Seems to me he is just being made the black sheep. In my opinion, no academic offense was committed here. The university acted irresponsibly and should be made to reimburse this student's year, the money he spent fighting this, plus extra for them having sullied his good name. The whole issues just shows how technologically backwards today's academic institutions are in this day and age. Sure, they have all the latest gear but they're scared to death of it, and are hysterical students will use it to cheat. I think acts like this are punishing the majority for a small handful of people who would have cheated whether the technology was there or not.