Is asking and answering school questions in an online forum cheating? It's been classified that way at one university:

First-year student Chris Avenir is fighting charges of academic misconduct for helping run an online chemistry study group via Facebook last term, where 146 classmates swapped tips on homework questions that counted for 10 per cent of their mark.

The computer engineering student has been charged with one count of academic misconduct for helping run the group – called Dungeons/Mastering Chemistry Solutions after the popular Ryerson basement study room engineering students dub The Dungeon – and another 146 counts, one for each classmate who used the site.

The obvious question is this: Had 10 of those students gathered around a table and done the same thing face to face, would it have been called cheating? In what way is a Facebook group different? I expect more of these "culture shock" cases to crop up over the next little while, and it should be interesting to watch them work themselves out.

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