In response to results of research into exam and assignment fraud, the educational director Egbert Woudstra of Communication Studies (TCW) sent his students a strongly-worded letter, in which among others he announced more strict checks.
The research published recently, called Cum Fraude done by two third year Educational Science and Technology students, specialisation Exam Techniques, showed that especially TCW-students (46 percent) used the exertions of their colleagues in group assignments. Moreover, half the TCW-students spent less than twenty hours a week on their study. Woudstra concludes that the image of his educational programme has been damaged because of the publicity surrounding the research. But, the educational director states, 'fortunately there is also a large group of students who do not commit fraud and I expect from those students that they confront their fraudulent colleagues with their irresponsible behaviour'. Woudstra also announces that the number of group assignments will be limited and that the remaining group assignments will be strictly structured 'in order to make clear who makes which contribution'. In addition, in future at TCW there will be more checks to prevent copying during exams. 'Students caught committing fraud will have to take a considerable amount of study-delay into account', according to the director.
