UK Art college: fraudulent course notes
Anonymous
Sounds like an urban legend to me.
>Hi!
>
>Some three days ago the text copied below was sent to the “artnet-all”
>email discussion list (details of the list given below). There has been
>no response via the list but I understand from a private email
>communication that the message was printed out and put over the student
>notice boards at Chelsea School of Art (A school of the London Institute
>in the UK). There can be no doubt that people at the college know of
>the allegation, but as yet I have not received any rebuttal. This is
>disturbing given the gravity of the issues at stake.
>
>Start original message ->
>
>I hear that Chelsea School of Art has for a large number of years be
>distributing course notes that contain multiple fraudulent citations and
>a made up quotation. If true, this is scandalous and erodes the
>standing and reputation for rigour, of the whole British education
>system. Is this true, and if so, what is being done about it?
>
><- End original message
>
>In fact I believe the situation is worse than is hinted at in this
>message. The course notes originated at Chelsea as early as the 1960s
>and were in use into the early 1990s, and has been widely circulated at
>other art colleges too. The course notes mainly relate to colour and at
>least one of the fraudulent citations is against the CIE. The made up
>quotation is against Newton, and this is daft as well as dishonest,
>since the reference pre-dates Newton’s first publication by several
>years! In the early 1990s it was picked up on by an academic at City
>Uni’ in the course of procedures intended to ensure academic rigour
>through interdisciplinary scrutiny. Rather than dump the course notes
>it is rumoured that the Chelsea academics threatened mass resignation
>and seem to have got away with it. Apparently the situation blew up
>again at a conference (where?) a couple of years ago, following this I
>understand that several whole departments of visual art academics have
>been placed under written instruction, regarding their future behaviour
>in regard of this, and another even nastier related scandal. The most
>worrying aspect of this, is that it seems that large-ish groups of
>British academics tried to continue teaching this material to their
>students, while fully aware of its fraudulent nature. This poses
>serious questions about the integrity of several well known
>institutions, as well as about the robustness of the procedures of
>quality assurance in the British higher education sector.
>
>Why post this here? Well, basic honesty would seem to a basic
>prerequisite for sceptical thought, and I have the impression that the
>kind of people who inhabit this newsgroup would be likely to be
>concerned about the issues raised here.
>
>It seems that a lot of people have gone to a lot of trouble to keep
>quiet about this.
>
>I repeat that the original posting had not been rebutted after three
>days.
>
>Details of the artnet-all email discussion group that carried the
>original post:
>
>artne...@mailbase.ac.uk distributes to all art related lists on the
>mailbase.ac.uk system. To post to artnet-all you must first be
>subscribed to one of the subgroups e.g. vr-...@mailbase.ac.uk Full
>details can be found at http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/
>
>Lee Moore
>Hastings
>UK