In the aftermath of UW’s cheating scandal, Nick Manning, director of media relations, confirmed to <em>Imprint </em>that the math faculty began to scan student IDs because of a “tipoff” prior to the start of exams.
“They had specific information of what may be going on,” Manning said. “Working with the police and the math faculty, they put procedures in place to prevent that cheating.”
There has been some speculation that the math faculty was able to catch accused UW student, Kaiwen Qian, and her alleged impersonator, PhD candidate from York University Longhua Wang, thanks to the fact that the faculty was on a trial basis or experimenting with scanning students’ WatCards.
Manning said that was not the case at all.
“No, it was not trial basis,” Manning said. “There was specific information they had received, so they implemented it for math exams over that period because they had [that] specific information.”
However, Manning added that the university would look at whether or not to implement a scanning system for all exams across all faculties in the future.
The university will evaluate the cost of implementation, while also considering alternatives such as scanning WatCards on a random basis.
“Clearly we want to prevent people from taking the extreme measures, so there is a deterrence factor to think about here as well,” Manning said.
He urged those students who are feeling pressure and stress from academic concerns to reach out to either their academic adviser or Counselling Services for assistance.
When asked about the challenges UW faces in keeping up with new forms of sophisticated cheating Manning said, “We’re always looking to make sure students here uphold those really high standards of academic integrity. We will continue to be vigilant and look out for people looking to flout those standards.”
