Can you help the director out here?

[barmar]

You wouldn't dream of doing this for a driving test or pilot's licence, or a licence to practise medicine.

Because those aren't games. We don't give them the benefit of the doubt because it could kill someone.

[VixTD]

Because those aren't games. We don't give them the benefit of the doubt because it could kill someone.

Do you mean you would give the benefit of the doubt to an arts student is unlikely to be in a position to kill someone through incompetence (except perhaps by mistranslating a crucial text), but you wouldn't to a lawyer, an engineer or a medical student?

[barmar]

Do you mean you would give the benefit of the doubt to an arts student is unlikely to be in a position to kill someone through incompetence (except perhaps by mistranslating a crucial text), but you wouldn't to a lawyer, an engineer or a medical student?

I wouldn't consider it a travesty if someone did that. We don't even require people to pass a test to make art.

[Trinidad]

Do you mean you would give the benefit of the doubt to an arts student is unlikely to be in a position to kill someone through incompetence (except perhaps by mistranslating a crucial text), but you wouldn't to a lawyer, an engineer or a medical student?

It happens all the time. I don't know what you are lecturing, but I am a chemical engineer. Throughout my life, as a high school student, a university student, as a grad student and when working at the university, I have seen situations where due to unforeseen circumstances tests could not be completed.

 

If you would have to fail each university student who couldn't complete a lab, then only very few, very lucky ones (as in: "not necessarily good, just lucky") would graduate with an engineering degree.

 

Take a typical engineering lab. It is full of equipment kindly donated by industry (read: "old junk that might still be used for teaching purposes"). The lab course is given once a year or once every two years. (These labs are expensive to run.) The students are divided into groups. Each group will run each piece of equipment in a rotation, similar to a bridge movement... or so is the plan. Because on day three, invariably one of these things will break. That happens with old equipment. This means that only two groups could run the equipment according to plan. The other 13 groups can't.

 

Do you mean that now only those first two groups get to pass the lab course because only they have been working the complete planned program? And the others have to wait two years when the lab runs the next time? In the next term, these same students go through the analytical chemistry lab. On day four, there is a short-circuit in the IR spectrometer. 12 out of the 15 groups cannot do their IR testing. "Sorry guys, see you next year"?

 

That would not be the engineering approach. The standard solution is that the students who can't use the equipment copy the data from one of the groups that could use it. And the teacher will make sure that the data is good. Then every group produces their own report on all the pieces of equipment, including the one that they never saw.

 

That means that those students will never turn any valves or pull any levers on the broken piece of equipment. They do not need to think which gauge to read at what particular point in time. And they do not need to make any decisions on what to do (which valve to turn or what lever to pull) with those readings. They will get good data for free.

 

In addition, when grading the report the lecturer will typically keep in mind that the students haven't seen the equipment when it was running. Mistakes in the report that are caused by this, will be corrected (so that the students will learn that it doesn't work like that) but also forgiven.

 

I would call that "getting the benefit of the doubt".

 

Rik

 

P.S. Engineers don't get actual specific industrial equipment training at a university. Operators who run equipment will have learned that on the job (i.e. in industry). They will be trained (and certified) for that specific piece of equipment by someone who knows that specific piece of equipment. University engineers typically do not operate or handle industrial equipment. They do not turn valves or pull levers in a plant. It would be one of the faster ways to blow up the place. ;)

[VixTD]

In the modern university every course and module has documented "learning outcomes" which the students have to meet in order to pass. If your learning outcomes are "analyse adequately data generated from a practical exercise using a certain piece of equipment" then it's fine to allow the students to pass if they are given someone else's data and show they can analyse it because the machine has broken down, even though you would have preferred them to have had a go at working the machine themselves as well. Working the machine wasn't part of the learning outcomes, but analysing and presenting the data was. What I would object to is saying "the machine's broken down, you can't generate data, but we'll pretend you've passed".

 

I recall years ago a student was unable to take a particular module which he needed for the degree he'd started because of an accident that put him out of action for several months. By the time he was well enough to have another go the course had changed and the module no longer existed. The powers that be wanted to just give him the academic credit for the work he was unable to do. I wanted us to construct some sort of personalised work plan that the student would have to carry out (a research dissertation or something) that would as far as possible meet the learning outcomes, so that we weren't giving away degrees that other students have to work for. (I lost.)

[barmar]

A better analogy might be what should happen if you turned in an exam or assignment, but then the professor's (or TA's, more likely) dog ate the homework (to borrow from the proverbial excuse) before he had a chance to grade it. Should you have to redo it because of the professor's error?

 

If this were an important test on the way to becoming a doctor or pilot, perhaps -- we need to err on the side of safety. But if it's a prerequisite for an art degree, give him the equivalent of a "not played", by not including it when averaging all his results for his final grade.

[Trinidad]

I recall years ago a student was unable to take a particular module which he needed for the degree he'd started because of an accident that put him out of action for several months. By the time he was well enough to have another go the course had changed and the module no longer existed. The powers that be wanted to just give him the academic credit for the work he was unable to do. I wanted us to construct some sort of personalised work plan that the student would have to carry out (a research dissertation or something) that would as far as possible meet the learning outcomes, so that we weren't giving away degrees that other students have to work for. (I lost.)

Doesn't the fact that you "lost" this particular case show that in universities these "benefit of doubt cases" do occur? You may not like them or you may be against them, but I find it a little strange that you first maintain that these things absolutely don't happen and then you yourself present an example where it did happen!

 

Rik

[VixTD]

Doesn't the fact that you "lost" this particular case show that in universities these "benefit of doubt cases" do occur? You may not like them or you may be against them, but I find it a little strange that you first maintain that these things absolutely don't happen and then you yourself present an example where it did happen!Rik

I didn't ever say it doesn't happen, only that it shouldn't.

[Trinidad]

I didn't ever say it doesn't happen, only that it shouldn't.

You are correct about that and I misunderstood.

 

All that is left is that we have a difference of opinion on whether this is a good or a bad practice. I guess we can live with that.

 

Rik