The topic at hand for this entry is something that I have not yet decided on whether to push the issue. It's something quite major, I believe, and when I first found out about it, I was extremely cheesed off.

Let me show you some parts of my Fundamentals of Graphics Design End-Of-Course Assessment (ECA) question paper. I'm reluctant to upload the whole file to my server for download since technically it is UniSIM's property, and I am not authorised to distribute it. Showing parts of it should be okay, though, I think.

We were to model these 3 objects below, and in the end merge them all into one scene, which was to have a theme, decided by the students.

The first 2 objects above and the third one below, with some steps as hint for the second object.

These 3 objects, you have seen before in one of my previous entries, in my final render of the project, yea?

Alright, now I would like you to visit these following sites : [Site 1 | Site 2 | Site 3]. Just open them all at once in different tabs or something. You just need to look at the first pages of each site.

Go ahead, and check them out.

Are you done yet?

If your immediate reaction is "what the fuck?", then you're right where I was slightly over a month ago. For those who didn't bother to click on them links, here are screenshots from the 3 sites.

Yes, the person who created the ECA question paper basically just went to these websites, copied the pictures of the 3D models, cropped off the sides (for the sword image, to get rid of the branding at the bottom) and voila, an assessment question paper! How easy is his/her job?!

But of course, that's not the best part. The best part is the fact that these images were taken, or if I may be so bold, stolen, from tutorial websites! Anybody and their grandmother who knows how to use Google can find these tutorial sites within minutes once the keywords are given. I know I did! I took 7 minutes to find all these 3 objects using Google, and that's only because I spent quite a number of those minutes ranting to some classmates about it! I reckon if I clock myself looking for them without distractions, I would take maybe 2 minutes (generous lazy timing there).

So what does this mean? All the students should be able to get A for their assessment paper. Is that not equivalent to cheating? How different is this from a lecturer giving the students the answers to the questions during an exam? Not very, I'd say!

Although I cannot be 100% certain on who set the question paper, an educated guess would point to the direction of the lecturer since she's also the course writer. Why would she do such a thing? I would think it's very obvious. As a way to keep her job, and hide her incompetency. I don't have evidence, but I'm fairly sure that the lecturers' performance are tied to their students' grades. And since she is obviously incompetent in 3DS Max, which the use of makes up 70% of the students' final grades, then creating assessment questions that can be easily, but not so outwardly, answered by the students would allow her uselessness to be masked, wouldn't it? The students would get relatively good grades, and she would be free to "teach" another batch of sheep.

All of which begs the question : Who vets these question papers? The Head of Programme? If yes, then didn't he bother to do a simple Google check? Hell, the question papers should be put through the TurnItIn system that the students' answers are made to be put through, just to weed out plagiarism from the lecturers! 'Cause this is plagiarism, to be sure! Of course since TurnItIn only checks for plagiarised texts, it would be useless against this sort of thing. Which brings me back to the person who vetted this question paper. The onus is on him/her to determine the integrity of the question paper, is it not?

And if the question paper was not vetted by the Head of Programme, or if not vetted at all, then where is the system in place for standards? I can see none at all. Every semester that passes, I feel more let down by this so-called "university".

Let's move on to the question paper of Advanced Graphics Design. I have to admit that this isn't as bad, but the laziness in which the question setter created the paper is still very obvious. Is this all it takes to be a lecturer? Hell, then I can be one too.

Here are parts of the question paper.

And if you go to 3DS Max 9's Help tool, and search for "doors", here's what you will get.

Does that look familiar to you? A search for "windows" will get you this.

The Help tool only lists down steps on how to use the doors and windows objects, and not teach on how to create the whole house, compared to the Fundamentals question paper where the tutorial pages teach you (almost) all the steps to create the final object. I didn't manage to find any references to the rose bush in the Help tool, or any exact tutorial on Google, so that's why I mentioned this question paper wasn't as bad. It's possible that my Googling skills failed me and one of you will be able to find the exact tutorial she stole the rose bush image from, though. =p

The bulk of my annoyance comes from the question paper of the Fundamentals of Graphics Design ECA, not the Advanced one. I mean, I cannot be the only one who sees a problem with this, right? What is the point of getting A for modules that have no standards?! I might've as well bought the damned A!

I am still unsure if I should bring this issue up to the Head of Programme (and if I do, to the Dean of the school as well), as this doesn't just affect me. No, I'm not talking about the lecturer, 'cause she deserved to be fired long ago. I'm talking about the rest of the cohort who did these 2 modules with me. Will we have to re-do our ECAs? Is it right to punish the students for the lecturer's obvious incompetence?

Should I do the right thing, or should I just be happy that I've gotten both modules over and done with?

Actually, no point deliberating, I know I'm going to do the right thing. At the risk of being called out for sabotaging everybody else's grades, though. Time to draft out a proper angst-less e-mail... This whole thing does not sit well with me.

In other, but related, news, regarding the dissatisfactions with the Audio and Video Technology lecturer, all the e-mails sent to the Head of Programme had brought just one extra lesson to the whole Video Technology module, which was conducted by the same lecturer whom we had found incomprehensible, so it would seem that I had fought for nothing. The HoP had claimed to us that he would sit in for every lesson, but that was a joke. He was probably in for half of maybe 2 lessons in Video Technology. Guess I got the answer to my previous questions on whether he was just trying to "show face". Indeed he was.

I've totally and utterly lost faith in UniSIM.