Using the Blue Room for research.

[Just Some Bloke]

Following on from various threads elsewhere, I thought we might mull over the best way of using the combined resources of our many experienced and, possibly, talented members to help students completing a piece of coursework.

 

There is a fine line between "research" and asking others to do your work for you.

 

Professionally, if I were given a lighting design to undertake but couldn't instantly feel what was required, I'd do some research to help me. I might find out about the history of the piece, how critics and other authors have commented on the piece, about any influences the director has told me he'd like to use, about colours suggested by the piece and so on. What I wouldn't do is to find another LD and say "I'm lighting such and such a piece - what would you do with it?" I'd want it to be my own work and if I really couldn't come up with something appropriate I'd hand it over to someone else I thought might do it better (luckily I've never had to do that yet, but I certainly wouldn't rule it out).

 

Based on that, I have no problem giving students pointers as to where to look as part of their research (suggest appropriate books, web links etc.) but wouldn't want to say "try a congo backlight with a 156 frontlight at 50%" as that's just too personal an opinion.

 

What do we think? How far should we go on The Blue Room when the word "coursework" comes up (or is implied)?

[Tomo]

Putting on my "Pure Evil" hat:

 

Why not give them a precise answer

And email it to their teacher as well.

[agermich]

I agree totally with 'Just some bloke'. I graduated from uni earlier this year. While at uni I came to the blueroom to ask for some help on a couple of occasions and I was given very usefull advice. I think that the reason people were willing to help me was that I had done the research and design work, what I needed help with was perfecting some of the lighting techniques needed to realise my design and that is where I feel Blueroom members can be of use to students. If your trying to choose gels for a particular show then you should spend time looking at colours and find what feels right for that show and then if you cant chose between a couple come of the blueroom and tell people why your having that difficulty and get their opinions. I don't feel that design (from a visual point of view) is something that can be taught, it is something that you have to do yourself and then learn from your own mistakes. On the other hand the technical side of design is something that you can learn a lot about by talking to professionals and going to see shows. Theres a fine line between getting useful advice and cheating, I think that it's really down to every member to be able to work out for themselves whether the OP that their replying to actually needs that advice or if their simply looking for an easy way to get their work done!

[paulears]

agermich seems to have the handle on the correct way to approach people for help. There do seem to be two popular methods of posting. The ones that really gets to me (sorry if I bite every time) is when it is quite clear the person posting basically has no idea whatsoever, and says things along the lines of "I have no idea at all", or "I am useless" or "I'm a lampie, but I need to ask a sound question".

 

The ones I really like are where the person spells out what they want to do, or what effect they are trying to achieve and then explain how they are intending to do it, asking for comments or advice - "I'd planned on using and XYZ..." To which pretty well all blue roomers then chip in with a range of answers. I have plenty of tme for people like this - they've done the basic research, made a few decisions - some good, maybe some a bit questionable, then before they start writing, they try it on us and we help - willingly.

 

Many requests are just thinly disguised 'do it for me's - it's so damned obvious that the idea is to get information from the BR membership, and then copy it and paste it into an assignment. No requirement to even understand it.

 

This is the type that I personally find so annoying. I worked damn hard for my pieces of paper, and so did a lot of other people. Doing it this way, despite vall the excuses is cheating - pure and simple. If the teachers don't spot that Johnny has suddenly come up with info that they know is outside of their usual range of competence and knowledge - surely they must also realise it isn't their own work. The usual culprit is FE in the 16-18 age group. Once people get to HE, then plagiarism is a sure fire way to get the red card, but at college it's usually just a slap on the wrist and then resubmit the work with the contentious bits taken out.

 

I've no objection to my small additions to the BR wisdom being used in anybodies coursework, but I'd at least like to be asked nicely. I'd like to see a proper method of doing this kind of thing - but I can't think of one. So far, results seem to show that a considered question, written in plain English, that actually makes sense. Today was a good example - questions that didn't make sense that ended in a member guessing the question then answering it - that's a first. The BR providing both the question AND answer!

[Guest lightnix]

I'm not quite sure what prevents a teacher from doing a quick search for a few key sentences on Google and would venture that anything copied from the Blue Room would show up very quickly, given that we're so well-spidered. I agree with the previous posters, who have no problem helping somebody develop an idea or someone who is trying to clarify some details and, if anything, those kind of questions may well elicit more information than they were actually asking for.

 

Eeee... when I were a lad we didn't have computers (no - really - we didn't ;) and it wasn't that long ago). We had to use books and our teachers always used to tell us that while copying verbatim (the old-fashioned equivalent of copy/pasting) was a no-no, it was OK to take the information that we were reading and then re-write it in our own way and style. That way, at least we might learn something about the subject and it would be fairly obvious to the teacher how much we had comprehended what we'd read.

[Andrew C]

I'm not quite sure what prevents a teacher from doing a quick search for a few key sentences on Google

They do; and often spot the cheats in all subjects.

[Simon Lewis]

All,

 

What teachers and lecturers are concerned about is plagiarism... passing off someone else's work as their own.

 

If a suggestion from Blue Room was referenced, I would count it acceptable, as long as it was part of a considered, rational answer.

 

e.g.

 

stating "the way to do it is ABC" (Joe Bloggs Blue Room 10/11/2006) is not acceptable,

 

but,

 

One approach favoured by some industry professionals is ABC (Joe Bloggs Blue Room 10/11/2006) however, others (Smith 2005, Jones 2003a) have highlighted that this technique depends upon specific physical resources being available...

 

is fine.

 

Plagiarism isn't always found out, but it is often easy to spot. A change in writing style, the absence of characteristic spelling mistakes (or the introduction of new ones!) or a paradigm shift in the level of understanding that is not in keeping with the rest of the report often signifies this.

 

Sometimes just Googling the suspect phrase is enough. I have done this before now, and found the first result to read "download this essay for $50".

 

I for one do check online resources and text books, and will spend time chasing suspected plagiarism. If students use the Blue Room (or any other resource) as part of their research, then I'd suggest that they reference it correctly and treat it as a personal communication. Naturally, such research should be balanced with material from accurate, peer reviewed resources. I used to say text books were an excellent example, but then one publisher started printing books "on demand" that had quite a lot of mistakes in ;-)

 

 

Simon

[Ken Coker]

Perhaps it is best I say nothing.....................

 

 

 

KC