I've been meaning to tell you all about Google's "Google Answers" which is
in Beta testing.
Google Answers (GA) http://answers.google.com is a fee-based answer service
that you might want to make your teachers aware of as school starts.
GA-researchers are not permitted to answer homework questions. Originally,
they weren't to be responded to at all. However, as with all profit-based
products, they decided more recently that it is "okay" to provide the tools
to answer the questions, do the research, legwork, etc. as long as you still
allow the student to do the analysis/synthesis. Unfortunately, not everyone
is closely abiding by those guidelines.
There is a Researcher discussion forum and those who are members of the
forum seem to be concerned about answering homework questions. Those from
this group have a tendency to remind users that they cannot answer homework
questions and encourage them to rephrase their research queries so that it
is within the guidelines. Unfortunately, not all of the GA researchers are
as conscientious. (And maybe not all of the questions are as blatantly
obvious that they are "homework" assignments.)
One thing I saw posted to the forum recently was a researcher wondering how
to make teachers aware of Google Answers to prevent people from cheating. I
decided that they had a good idea and that I would attempt to get the word
out to people who could let teachers know. For that reason, I would
encourage you to check out the site, show it to your teachers, and suggest
that they might want to check this additional "resource" for potential
violations of academic integrity.
I'll give you a brief run down of the way GA works. Google "accepted" about
500 independent contractors to be GA researchers. These people go through a
review process to determine their ability and usefulness to the research
team. After they are accepted as a researcher, for each question a
researcher answers he/she earns 75% of the posted question value. Google
charges a $.50 listing fee and keeps the remaining 25% of the question
price. Askers can pay between $2.00 and $200.00 per question. They set the
price they are willing to pay for an answer. There are more details at the
FAQ if you're interested.
I just thought I'd help to make teachers aware that their students may be
using Google Answers to "help" do their work. It has been pretty obvious
that college students are using the service heavily. I don't know how many
high school students might be using it as well.
Kim
Kimberly A. Brosan, Librarian
Mid-Carolina High School, SC
kim@bigbadwolf.org <mailto:kim@bigbadwolf.org>
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