Where are the standards of a University education heading? (2 Viewers)

Graney

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iirc, turnitin scans your document for any series of four words in order, against its stored data. So all those little phrases you use like "therefore, it is shown", "figure 2 shows that the" etc... Will all be recorded as plagiarism. It's expected you'll have a certain percentage, 10-20% is standard for a completely original document.

Turnitin is incredibly easy to cheat! You can get a 0% plagiarised stat (which would be a mistake to do, because it would look suspiciously low) on a fully cut and paste essay, with a few simple tricks.

Also, all my lecturers said "you must submit all assignments to turnitin for this course", but in 3 years at uni, I only ever submitted a single paper to turnitin. I reused portions of several essays across several subjects, safe in the knowledge they were never submitted to turnitin. Lecturers are lazy and don't follow it up, at least at my uni.
 

melwilson

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Is Australia being 'Dumbed Down'?

I have a theory that educational standards in Australia are lowering.
Do you agree?
Would be interested in your opinions...
 

Scissors

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Re: Is Australia being 'Dumbed Down'?

what doz u meen?

i'm dooing legel studiez
 

Scissors

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Re: Is Australia being 'Dumbed Down'?

no guyz, but seriously, i do legal studiz
 

Iron

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Re: Is Australia being 'Dumbed Down'?

Falling from what though?
We were founded by the scum of an Empire in a continent inhabited by peoples frozen in the stone age. All our success is due to a gritty determination to redeem ourselves from our sins, not any fantastic intellectual history
 
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Re: Is Australia being 'Dumbed Down'?

Yes, but the ethic that we used to thrive on - making ourselves better than we are - has been replaced by the idea that we should all win.
 

incentivation

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Re: Is Australia being 'Dumbed Down'?

Yes, but the ethic that we used to thrive on - making ourselves better than we are - has been replaced by the idea that we should all win.
And most Australians only show resentment towards those who are successful..
 

Iron

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Re: Is Australia being 'Dumbed Down'?

Yes, but the ethic that we used to thrive on - making ourselves better than we are - has been replaced by the idea that we should all win.
I agree. Somewhere along the way, our culture decided that self-improvement isnt an individual struggle, but a right owed to us
<3
 

Riet

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What if one university has the best business, the best law and the best engineering school as well as COFA and NIDA? It's not our fault we're good.
 
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Re: Is Australia being 'Dumbed Down'?

hmm, not sure how courses such as laws, economics arts etc etc are like, but in civil engineering you either know how to do the calculations or you dont. you cant just shit talk your way through it.

However, there was a subject last semester (fluid mechanics) where i did not go to more than 5 lectures and 4 tutes throughout and walked out with 83. how? it was an open book exam where the exam was identical to the one he put up as a guide. I had solutions to them, took it in and vollah.

not to mention this was a very rare case. Im pretty sure with most technical courses you got to do the work. Also, with most core engineering subjects, to get a pass you will have to sit down and learn the course.

I mean, you cant write your way through an exam when it asks you to calculate the forces on beam X, you either know how to do it or not.
 

staticsiscool

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Re: Is Australia being 'Dumbed Down'?

This is true.

Tbh i have had 2 of my exams be open book and i did not study at all
and my last 3 were 70% each fo the exams and 3 10% assignments per course. You could fail each assignment but if you studied and got above 70 in the exam you could pass the course. Most retarded system ever. Why did a spend a topic in 2nd year engineering relearning harvard referencing usq you dumb cunts.
 

mrcalkin

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Re: Is Australia being 'Dumbed Down'?

way too many people doing accouting. UAI of say 75-80 should be cut off. anything lower doesnt belong at uni.
 
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xeuyrawp

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I like it how everyone's focussing on the symptom, that universities are selling out. The main problem is obviously the cause, that the intellectual climate of Australia is shit and it's most obvious when you look at the tertiary system.
 

banco55

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High standards in an era of mass education seem to be very hard to sustain. If you look at Australia it was only in the early 50's that a large number of kids would stay on to year 12 and universities were able to maintain high standards despite the increasing number of students. By the late 60's it started going down hill fairly rapidly. All up we had around a 20 year golden age of education in Australia.
 

Lentern

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Re: Is Australia being 'Dumbed Down'?

way too many people doing accouting. UAI of say 75-80 should be cut off. anything lower doesnt belong at uni.
Pardon my ignorance but doesn't the UAI system ensure that too many people can't do a course? As in if too many want to do it the UAI will simply get driven up?
 

mrcalkin

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Re: Is Australia being 'Dumbed Down'?

Pardon my ignorance but doesn't the UAI system ensure that too many people can't do a course? As in if too many want to do it the UAI will simply get driven up?
there are plenty of courses at low ranking uni's with UAI cut offs around 60~. if someone can't put the effort in to, getting a UAI of 75-80~. No University should accept them.
 

Will Shakespear

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Re: Is Australia being 'Dumbed Down'?

Pardon my ignorance but doesn't the UAI system ensure that too many people can't do a course? As in if too many want to do it the UAI will simply get driven up?
yeah the UAI is just supply and demand

i suppose the question, is should it be?

i.e. should the only requirements for uni entry be
a) they have enough seats in the lecture theatre, and
b) there aren't enough people smarter than you who want to fill those seats first.
 
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