While enrolled as an online student at the University of Scranton, Kristen Hart took a practicum in an elementary education class taught by Professor George Jones.

According to the court’s ruling in the case, Hart handed in an assignment that included some text she had initially written for another class. Jones concluded she had plagiarized her work, and Hart was assigned a grade of zero and expelled.

She sued, claiming breach of contract. She also said the school had fraudulently represented to her that she had violated her contract with it.

The court ruled for the school. Hart did not reference any specific contractual terms or cite any specific contractual breach by the school. The fraudulent misrepresentation claim failed because Hart alleged only that Jones accused her of plagiarism and acted unprofessionally. This was not enough to support the latter claim, the court said.

Cite: Hart v. University of Scranton.

Have a comment? Please add it below.

This one is big.

A recent graduate of a tony Long Island high school has been slapped with a number of criminal charges based on allegations that he charged six students at his alma mater up to $2,500 to take the SAT exam for them.

According to the local district attorney, six students at Great Neck North High School paid 2010 grad Samuel Eshaghoff between $1,500 and $2,500 to take the test for them. Eshaghoff, who enrolled at Emory University in Atlanta after high school, has been charged with a scheme to defraud, falsifying business records and criminal impersonation. He could be jailed for up to four years.

According to a published report, he registered a score of at least 2100 on all six bogus tests.

The scam unraveled after officials compared the top-notch scores to the students’ grade point averages and discovered similar handwriting on all the suspect exams.

The six students who allegedly hired Eshaghoff face misdemeanor charges.

If convicted, should the test-taker serve jail time? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

In the fall of 2007 officials at the University of Dayton Law School told student John Valente that another student had accused him of violating the school’s honor code during final exams.

After an investigation and disciplinary hearing, the school concluded that Valente violated the code by receiving exam questions in advance from another student who had already taken it and by passing the questions along to another student. It suspended him for at least three semesters.

Valente’s response: a lawsuit. He claimed the school breached a contract with him and caused him to suffer emotional distress. He also said the school acted negligently and fraudulently.

No way, said the court. Although Valente claimed in court that a dean told him it was OK to accept material from other students who had taken an exam, he did not make this claim during his disciplinary hearing. There were no grounds for a  negligence claim, and the emotional distress claim failed because school officials did not engage in extreme and outrageous conduct.

Cite: Valente v. University of Dayton.

What’s your reaction to this ruling? Please tell us below — and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

Junhyuk Park was caught plagiarizing a paper while he was a student at Purdue University. When the paper was rejected, Park didn’t focus his defense on the argument that the work was his own. Instead, he said the school didn’t apply its plagiarism rules fairly and claimed he was singled out for more stringent plagiarism review because he is Asian.

According to Park, other students in the same program handed in papers with “a greater or similar amount of alleged plagiarism” and yet were not disciplined. The school rejected his arguments and expelled him.

Park sued – and got the green light to proceed with his claim that the school violated his equal protection rights. He had a clear right not to be subjected to a different standard of plagiarism review than other students based on his national origin, the court said, and it was too soon to tell whether the school violated his equal protection rights. Therefore, the school’s early bid to have the case tossed was rejected.

Cite: Park v. Trustees of Purdue University.

Did the court get it right by letting Park proceed with his claim? Tell us what you think below – and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

Dr. Michael Hartnett knows a little bit about academic cheating: He’s been a teacher, professor and tutor for more than 20 years.

As we all know, technology has made cheating easier than ever. But that doesn’t mean it has to be a losing battle. In his article titled “3 Rules to Encourage a Cheat-Free Classroom,” Hartnett offers up three strategies to combat this age-old problem:

1) Ban electronic devices from the classroom. If calculators are needed for an exam, wipe out their memories before students get them.

2) Disallow bathroom breaks during exams.

3) Prohibit students from putting their hands below the tops of their desks. “Nothing good can come from students whose hands are hidden in their laps,” Hartnett says.

For more info on Dr. Hartnett, click here.

Are these good suggestions? Do you have any to add? Please chime in below – and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

A student with a medical/psychological condition was enrolled in a Ph.D program at a university.

After she was assigned a grade of “B” on an exam, she tried to improve it by altering the exam and resubmitting it.

The ploy didn’t work. The school discovered it and commenced disciplinary proceedings.

After initially denying what she had done, the student finally confessed and the school suspended her for a year.

The student responded with a lawsuit that claimed disability discrimination and failure to accommodate her alleged disability. She asked the court to issue a temporary restraining order that would force the school to reinstate her pending the outcome of the litigation.

No way, the court said. The student wasn’t likely to win her accommodation claim because she never asked for a disability-related accommodation. Nor was she likely to win her claim of disability bias, since she didn’t show the reason given by the school for suspending her (cheating) was a pretext for disability discrimination.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

While Phat Van Le was taking an exam, the proctor observed suspicious movements that led him to believe Le might be looking at a classmate’s work. When the proctor reminded the students that cheating was not allowed, Le’s suspicious behavior stopped.

Le was later officially accused of cheating on the exam, and a hearing was held. The proctor talked about what he saw, and four of Le’s classmates said they believed they’d seen him cheat on other tests.

Le’s explanation: Any unusual movements were caused by a back condition that makes it hard for him to sit still for long periods of time.

The hearing panel didn’t buy Le’s explanation, and he was expelled. He sued the school, claiming violation of his due process rights.

He lost. A federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling against him, saying he was given all the process he was due. Le was allowed to present his defense; it just didn’t fly.

Cite: Le v. University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey.

Have a comment on the above story? Please share it below.

• “It’s not my fault” — A 2006 study from the Iowa State College of Business found students placed the blame on their professors. Students said questions shouldn’t be asked if the answers are available on the Internet. They also believed professors should take it as a given that students will help each other out on assignments.
• “Everyone does it” — This was the response from some students in the Iowa study. An MIT professor explored the issue on his own and found many students cheat “a little bit,” rather than a handful of students who cheat a lot.
• “It’s so easy to cheat” — Cell phones, BlackBerries, laptops … Technology has made it easier than ever to cheat. Take-home test? No problem — just download the answers or essays from an online source.
• “Gotta keep up my GPA” — College courses can be demanding and students feel the pressure. A typical student may be juggling school work, a part-time job, on-campus activities and a social life. You have to be made of strong moral stuff to resist the urge to copy and paste your answers from a Web site.

The real question is: From a student’s perspective, are the reasons against cheating more compelling than the reasons defending it?

What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below.

In fact, cheating in computer science classes accounts for 23% of Stanford’s honor code violations.

Researchers revealed how cheaters do it:

• unpermitted collaboration (43%)
• plagiarism, uncited work from the Internet (31%)
• copying from classmates (11%)

Regardless of the reasons for cheating, Stanford has had a significant increase in the number of violations.

One professor uses a “collective incentive” to deter students from cheating: He adds five weight percent points to the final exam for each honor code violation.

For more information on the study, go here and here.

Have you noticed a cheating spike among students? Share your experiences in the comments section below.

Here’s Education-Portal.com‘s list of the eight most popular ways students are cheating (in no particular order):

• Copying — Whether it’s eyes roving during a test or a so-called “study group,” it’s still copying.
• Buying papers online — It doesn’t get much easier than this. Papers on just about any topic you can think of are available — and most can be downloaded instantly.
• Cheat sheets — This perennially popular form of cheating is made even easier with today’s electronic devices.
• Take a picture — If a professor leaves a test on his desk, all it takes is the click of a student’s cell phone camera to steal it.
• “Can I go to the bathroom?” — Once there, a student can call or text friends for answers during a test.
• MP3 players — Students can put anything on their iPods — including lecture notes. And with many professors letting students listen to their MP3s during tests in order to focus and relax …
• Cell phones — Is there a better — or easier — way to store data?
• When is a candy bar more than a candy bar? — Believe it or not, some students have peeled off the wrapper, scanned it, edited the nutritional info into test answers and rewrapped the candy bar — where it sits on the student’s desk during an exam.

Which method of cheating are you most familiar with  — or do you have one you’d like to add to the list? Let us know in the comments section below.

Aside: Does anyone miss the good old days, when compliments and teacher appreciation gifts paved the way to a good grade?