Is this common

[universitystudent]

Edit: too much info

Edited March 8, 2016 by universitystudent

[fuzzylogician]

8 minutes ago, universitystudent said:

As mentioned in my previous post, the prof's latest email was literally "according to university policy students need to keep copies of their work. Do you have a print copy?". So I told him yes, and never heard from him again. If he wanted another copy, he should have told me to email, mail, drop off in-person or something.

Seriously?? This is equivalent to the following conversation:

A: Could you pass the salt please?
B: No. 
A: What do you mean 'no'? It's there right next to you. Don't you see it?
B: Yes. (Doesn't pass the salt.)

This has got to be one of the more ridiculous conversations I've had in a while. 

[marycaryne]

10 minutes ago, universitystudent said:

As mentioned in my previous post, the prof's latest email was literally "according to university policy students need to keep copies of their work. Do you have a print copy?". So I told him yes, and never heard from him again. If he wanted another copy, he should have told me to email, mail, drop off in-person or something. I'm going to bring another copy to class just in case, and see if he asks me then. 

Are you actually being serious?

On 3/6/2016 at 10:11 PM, universitystudent said:

I have two profs so far who requested for electronic copy of my paper on two different occasions  because my paper was "left at work". The course outlines did not even say we have to email the paper. Why do profs do this? Do they think my paper is too great or something? And is this common?

 

21 hours ago, universitystudent said:

So I told the prof that I didn't save the latest version of my assignment (but I did already handed in the hard copy of the assignment prior to his request for an electronic). The prof replied back with "according to university policy students need to keep copies of their work. Do you have a print copy?". Why would the prof change the topic? It seems as if he is trying to catch any mistake?

Apparently him blatantly requesting you send him another copy (by your own admission), it still isn't good enough to be considered a request for another copy. This is utterly absurd. You're in grad school, not high school. Take some responsibility for yourself.

[universitystudent]

Why ask for an electronic copy (and later asking if I kept a print copy too) when I was already responsible and handed in the first copy on the due date? Makes no sense. K thx bai

Edited March 8, 2016 by universitystudent

[GradSchoolTruther]

I have my guesses why they want an electronic copy. Sorry you didn't get the affirmation a special snowflake should get.

[knp]

Maybe he's going out of town because his mother is having a health crisis and he needs to bring her to her appointments, and he doesn't have room in his bag for a bunch of student work, but he feels responsible for his class and wants to return the papers to his students quickly.

Maybe he lost it, because he's a person.

Maybe you made a lot of typos, so he wants to use spellcheck to correct it faster.

Maybe he was doing research in the local zoo and your paper was gnawed on by rampaging wildebeests, and he would like to review a copy that's free from wildebeest tooth marks.

Why do you think that your university has a policy that students need to keep copies of their own work? Give me three reasons that could become useful. Let me tell you, they have that policy for a reason.

[ExponentialDecay]

The only thing keeping me going is the knowledge that OP is gonna get a job one day and start dishing this shit to his employer, who will fire him, and then OP will bitch about workplace discrimination until the cows come home.

[marycaryne]

41 minutes ago, universitystudent said:

Why ask for an electronic copy (and later asking if I kept a print copy too) when I was already responsible and handed in the first copy on the due date? Makes no sense. K thx bai

Things happen. It doesn't matter why you think you should get preferential treatment. If a professor makes a very simple request, you oblige.

The fact you "didn't save" your work combined with you being extremely difficult about giving your professor another copy leads me to believe that he had a very good reason to request that electronic copy to begin with.

[Chiqui74]

He/she has to be trolling us.  There's just no other explanation.

[Eigen]

IMO, what start as an innocent request "hey, can you send me an electronic copy of this" turned into a more serious inquiry when you said you didn't have one. 

If I was the professor, the first thing in my mind would be "well, I didn't think this was plagiarized, but I certainly do now". 

[CBclone]

On 3/8/2016 at 4:49 PM, universitystudent said:

Why ask for an electronic copy (and later asking if I kept a print copy too) when I was already responsible and handed in the first copy on the due date? Makes no sense. K thx bai

He asked for an electronic copy, you responded you didn't have one of the final submission. He then asked if you had a print copy, to which you stated you did. Correct?

I think what people are getting at is that by him asking if you had another paper copy, he was implying if you could scan and e-mail a copy of it. This apparently was not explicitly stated, but seems to be the logical order of thought and action to myself and other members of the forum.

 

This reminds me of a junior in one of my cross-listed courses who does not save files. Anywhere -- not on a cloud service, flash drive, computer, doesn't even e-mail it to himself. First was a 10+ page analysis paper which the undergrads overwhelmingly tanked and the instructor offered them the opportunity to make recommendation revisions or re-do the assignment. Student proclaimed "...but I don't want to re-write the whole thing! That's the only copy I have." Instructor told him tough luck; instructor (rightly so, IMO) felt the kid (21 and in his third year of college) should have the knowledge and responsibility to save documents. Apparently he's made it through his academic career by just leaving his computer on all the time and never actually saves files and only closes them (again, w/o saving) after they are printed. Second time around was a two-page (albeit single-spaced) paper which had to be turned in electronically and in hard copy. He turned in the hard copy and when instructor reviewed e-file process on blackboard, same student again asked for his paper back to re-type and submit electronically. We also have a weekly assignment with specific formatting and tables of text, which he apparently has been typing in Word (using the template doc) and then copying & pasting into blackboard, which strips away all of the tables and formats. For some reason, he a.) didn't learn from the first paper (nor apparently any other papers in his academic life) and b.) seems rather proud of not saving anything. #sigh

Edited March 12, 2016 by CBclone

[SAH]

I'm halfway to convinced that OP plagiarized that assignment - imagine how the professor feels.

[Lisa_McCoy]

Professors have a lot on their plate. They tend to misplace things or as in your case they might have misplaced your paper somewhere and are unable to find it. With so much to do in limited time, professors don't like to waste their time going after that one misplaced paper. So if they ask to mail an electronic copy, it is completely understandable.   

[Imaginary]

I'll add another perspective, here. I am a graduate student and former high school teacher. I would never expect a student, even a student in university or graduate school, to turn in an electronic copy after they had already given me a print copy. I find such a request extremely irresponsible at this level. As a high school teacher, I once misplaced a student's assignment. I felt terrible and it caused me a lot of anxiety; thankfully, I found it. I have taken great care to never repeat that mistake. Even at the university level, why should students have to do extra work due to an instructor's mistake? That said, such problems could be avoided simply by requiring all students to turn in electronic copies rather than print copies.

[TakeruK]

24 minutes ago, Imaginary said:

I'll add another perspective, here. I am a graduate student and former high school teacher. I would never expect a student, even a student in university or graduate school, to turn in an electronic copy after they had already given me a print copy. I find such a request extremely irresponsible at this level. As a high school teacher, I once misplaced a student's assignment. I felt terrible and it caused me a lot of anxiety; thankfully, I found it. I have taken great care to never repeat that mistake. Even at the university level, why should students have to do extra work due to an instructor's mistake? That said, such problems could be avoided simply by requiring all students to turn in electronic copies rather than print copies.

I agree with you that if an instructor misplaces a copy of their student's work, it should be on the professor, not the student. I am constantly fearful that I will misplace one of my students' work so I always keep it all in a folder, count before I take them home to grade, count them before I bring them back to work, etc. I don't actually know what to do if I lost an assignment (I guess I will have to check the university policies). I think without any policy, my only choice would be to either: 1) request another copy of the work, or 2) do not count the assignment towards the final grade (only viable if it's a small-value assignment). Option 2 is easy but it could hurt the student if this was going to be their best work all semester.

But, in this particular example, there is a university-level policy: All students must keep copies of their work. This is a reasonable University level requirement and something the student should have known. I think this is a great policy because then in the case that an instructor does lose an assignment, they can ask for another copy. Or, alternatively, if there needs to be an investigation on the work, students must be able to provide a copy of their work to those who need to know. 

Sending in another copy is barely extra work, especially since the student should have already have a copy of their work as per university policy. It would be unfair if the professor gave the student a deadline like "give me another copy of your work TONIGHT!" But if the professor makes a mistake, loses their work, and asks for another copy, and provides a reasonable timeframe + allowances for submission of the copy, then it's all fine. 

[GradSchoolTruther]

5 hours ago, Imaginary said:

I'll add another perspective, here. I am a graduate student and former high school teacher. I would never expect a student, even a student in university or graduate school, to turn in an electronic copy after they had already given me a print copy. I find such a request extremely irresponsible at this level. As a high school teacher, I once misplaced a student's assignment. I felt terrible and it caused me a lot of anxiety; thankfully, I found it. I have taken great care to never repeat that mistake. Even at the university level, why should students have to do extra work due to an instructor's mistake? That said, such problems could be avoided simply by requiring all students to turn in electronic copies rather than print copies.

Graduate students are also treated differently than undergraduate students. You are making it seem that it's such an extra chore to email a paper. In reality, it's a task that would take less than five minutes. 

[toxicdevil]

On 3/6/2016 at 9:11 AM, universitystudent said:

I have two profs so far who requested for electronic copy of my paper on two different occasions  because my paper was "left at work". The course outlines did not even say we have to email the paper. Why do profs do this? Do they think my paper is too great or something? And is this common?

maybe he wants to check it for plagiarism. 

[Imaginary]

21 hours ago, GradSchoolTruther said:

Graduate students are also treated differently than undergraduate students. You are making it seem that it's such an extra chore to email a paper. In reality, it's a task that would take less than five minutes. 

I'm not arguing that it is an extra chore. Rather, I am arguing that (despite the policy) it would be problematic if the student were to suffer consequences due to the prof's mistake. Everyone forgets policies once in a while, or has something unfortunate happen - a lost USB, for instance. Some students struggle with anxiety, which may cause them difficulty both with following such policies regularly and/or with following through should a prof contact them unexpectedly with such a request . In any case, I believe the OP is an undergraduate rather than a graduate student. 

[fuzzylogician]

1 hour ago, Imaginary said:

I'm not arguing that it is an extra chore. Rather, I am arguing that (despite the policy) it would be problematic if the student were to suffer consequences due to the prof's mistake. Everyone forgets policies once in a while, or has something unfortunate happen - a lost USB, for instance. Some students struggle with anxiety, which may cause them difficulty both with following such policies regularly and/or with following through should a prof contact them unexpectedly with such a request . In any case, I believe the OP is an undergraduate rather than a graduate student. 

This is not a great hardship, it's part of university policies and follows from common sense even if it wasn't. We don't even know that the professor lost the assignment, this is all speculation. What's more, the student in question does have a copy of the work, or so he says, he's just refusing to scan and send it to the professor. I fail to see how the professor is doing anything inappropriate here. Unsubstantiated assumptions about anxiety have no place in this discussion. If we were to go down that path, we could be discussing the hardship of meeting deadlines, having weekly assignments, having to ever speak up in class or give a presentation, and so on. If a particular student has a particular (preferably documented) problem, it is their responsibility to bring it to instructor's attention. There is only so much a person can guess or accommodate without reason. All we're talking about is a professor asking a student to resend a copy of their assignment, this is completely ordinary and would not be a big deal if the student didn't make it into one. 

[ExponentialDecay]

On 4/8/2016 at 8:18 PM, Imaginary said:

I'm not arguing that it is an extra chore. Rather, I am arguing that (despite the policy) it would be problematic if the student were to suffer consequences due to the prof's mistake. Everyone forgets policies once in a while, or has something unfortunate happen - a lost USB, for instance. Some students struggle with anxiety, which may cause them difficulty both with following such policies regularly and/or with following through should a prof contact them unexpectedly with such a request . In any case, I believe the OP is an undergraduate rather than a graduate student. 

I don't think it's problematic, frankly. In legal parlance, what OP did would be called coming to the nuisance. Suffering consequences for somebody else's mistake is an extremely frequent part of life, and whilst such an eventuality should be minimized to the greatest extent possible, that minimization of risk must come from both parties involved. Not only should OP have kept a copy because it's common sense to keep a copy, but he should have realized, being the big boy that he is, that, if his work got lost and he got a bad grade for it, it would be his problem, not the professor's, so it's in his interest to do everything in his power to make sure the professor had an easy time of grading his work. It would be nice if the professor admitted she lost it and gave OP the benefit of the doubt in some way - and that's assuming she's asking for a copy because she lost it, which is in no way a certainty - but that's up to her discretion, and OP shouldn't act entitled and assume that strangers' discretion will always work out in his favor. 

I think it's problematic that you paint people in their teens and early twenties as children incapable of thinking two steps ahead. When I was in high school, I knew that, if I crossed a highway on a red light and got run over, it would be my problem because I'd be dead, so I took more precautions than simply expecting everyone to stop what they're doing and let me do as I please. I likewise knew that, if a teacher couldn't grade my assignment for whatever reason - because they lost it or because I refused to resubmit it - the bad grade would be my problem, not my teacher's. So I took more precautions than tossing whatever their way and being like, it's your problem now man figure it out. Because it's not their problem. It's my problem. They're not affected by whether I get an A or an incomplete. I am. Basic life skills, man.

[emmm]

Agree with @ExponentialDecay. A teacher (undergrad course) lost a small HW assignment of mine once. Math problems, done in pencil. I said no problem, I'll do them again and get them to you later today (still fresh in my mind). She later found the original. And, speaking as a teacher, checking for plagiarism generally doesn't even require an electronic copy. A few randomly selected lines entered into a search box (i.e. little enough text that typing in by hand from a printed submission is no big deal) generally is all it takes. Very few of my students, anyway, are very clever in their cheating (or  maybe SOME are.... but I find plenty who aren't).

[Imaginary]

On 08/04/2016 at 4:11 PM, fuzzylogician said:

This is not a great hardship, it's part of university policies and follows from common sense even if it wasn't. We don't even know that the professor lost the assignment, this is all speculation. What's more, the student in question does have a copy of the work, or so he says, he's just refusing to scan and send it to the professor. I fail to see how the professor is doing anything inappropriate here. Unsubstantiated assumptions about anxiety have no place in this discussion. If we were to go down that path, we could be discussing the hardship of meeting deadlines, having weekly assignments, having to ever speak up in class or give a presentation, and so on. If a particular student has a particular (preferably documented) problem, it is their responsibility to bring it to instructor's attention. There is only so much a person can guess or accommodate without reason. All we're talking about is a professor asking a student to resend a copy of their assignment, this is completely ordinary and would not be a big deal if the student didn't make it into one. 

I often think about the hardship of speaking up in class and giving presentations on my students with severe anxiety. That is part of my practice as a teacher. 

[fuzzylogician]

1 hour ago, Imaginary said:

I often think about the hardship of speaking up in class and giving presentations on my students with severe anxiety. That is part of my practice as a teacher. 

Way to not address the actual content of my post. Once you are done with all that thinking, do you then not require that your students do anything you think might be hard for them to do (or, for that matter, things that for sure will be hard for them to do)? Or do you set boundaries and define clear requirements, and -- if necessary -- assist those with an actual need to meet those requirements? 

[Eigen]

3 hours ago, Imaginary said:

I often think about the hardship of speaking up in class and giving presentations on my students with severe anxiety. That is part of my practice as a teacher. 

You're conflating an awful lot of your experience as a high school teacher with what is appropriate at the college (or even graduate) level. 

K-12 education has a large component of accessibility, including making what can be significant exceptions to course design and requirements in light of student disabilities. 

Post-secondary education, on the other hand, rarely asks "what can we ask of our students that they can all do" or "what can still be done by students with disabilities", but rather "what is going to be required of these students when they finish, what skills/knowledge do we feel like they need to have". 

The latter approach is also highlighted in the approach to students with disabilities at the college level- college courses are not required to change course assignments and objectives, or except students from those assignments, based on disability if the assignments/courses are considered necessary to the field.

So you keep talking about your experience as a teacher, which is fine, but it's clearly not at the post-secondary level where things are quite different, and that is what is being discussed here. 

[TakeruK]

6 hours ago, Imaginary said:

I often think about the hardship of speaking up in class and giving presentations on my students with severe anxiety. That is part of my practice as a teacher. 

I think this is a valid thing to think about. I know that it's no fun being called on in class to answer a question on the spot, and this practice is usually unnecessary in most classes. 

The way I think about the hardship of presenting to a class for students with anxiety or other issues is to not surprise students with these requirements and expectations. They are told on the very first day what is expected in each class. Often, the course involves a final project at the end with a 15 minute presentation. Or, they will be required to get into groups of 2 or 3 and trade draft papers for peer review. Or, there may be a 5 minute presentation every week. Or, there will be grading strictly based on participation---you must speak at every class in order to get points (common in graduate seminar classes). 

In fact, I always tell all of the students exactly what the expectations are during the first day/week of class. I believe in making expectations fair and upfront. 

My point here is that I agree with you that, as instructors, we need to consider that our students have different needs in order to succeed in the classroom. But this does not mean that you have to compromise your teaching goals. In my classes, public speaking, presentations, and participation are a critical component of the core learning goals for both my class and the program's overall curriculum. I try to help students with anxiety as much as possible by informing them of the expectations beforehand and thus they can seek whatever help they might need in order to succeed in the class (Of course, I also let the students know I can be a resource, but I understand that sometimes the students prefer help from someone not involved in teaching them or from someone with expertise in their situation).

So, I would be an instructor that would set expectations like "all students must keep a copy of all their work until final grades are awarded" and if I need another copy of an assignment, I would definitely ask, and expect, the student to provide it. But I'm not going to just say "You must provide it by X date or else!", and if the OP was my student, I would certainly try to find out if there was a hardship in getting an extra copy to me and be as reasonable as I can.

In general, it's important for instructors to think about different needs and difficulties that our students might face. But we should also not assume our students are not capable of X and then treat them as if they cannot do it. Instead, I believe in empowering my students with the knowledge of what is expected so that they can do what they need to do in order to succeed.