Liberal Education Today

A student is being expelled from Ryerson University for organizing chemistry class study group on Facebook, according to the Toronto Star.

First-year student Chris Avenir is fighting charges of academic misconduct... [having] been charged with one count of academic misconduct for helping run the group... and another 146 counts, one for each classmate who used the site.

Avenir sees the group as a digital analogue of offline study groups.

"What I participated in is the same thing basically as all the other study groups that are going on in the library," he claims.

Students would meet virtually, and discuss classroom assignments.

One side effect of this case is students fearing using Facebook for academic purposes:

"All these students are scared s---less now about using Facebook to talk about schoolwork, when actually it's no different than any study group working together on homework in a library," said...Kim Neale, 26, the student union's advocacy co-ordinator, who will represent Avenir at the hearing...

"That's the worst part; it's creating this culture of fear, where if I post a question about physics homework on my friend's wall (a Facebook bulletin board) and ask if anyone has any ideas how to approach this – and my prof sees this, am I cheating?" said Neale, who has used Facebook study groups herself.