I had one interesting experience I want to note: I took a couple of #Java courses at the community college level. During my master’s degree program, I was in a Java course completed online. I was in a group of six students, most of whom had not taken Java previously. Four students and I struggled with the assignment, with attempt after attempt that failed to meet objectives. The day before the assignment was due, the other group member handed us a completely working program, apparently forked off one of our earliest non-working versions.

It turned out the instructor could see our group interactions (chats, forums) and marked him down for failure to participate. So he got the rest of us a passing grade on the assignment, but because his only interaction was the toss the finished program into our forum, he received a failing grade on the project.

This was so long ago that we used MSN Messenger as our unofficial (out of the campus’s view) communication medium. I received an inquiry about my grade on the assignment. I shared it, expecting that every group member would have received the same grade, only to find that D received a lower grade.

He tried to make a stink about it, but it is hard to argue with the interaction record.