NURS 4325 Research Start Date 5/20/2013

Nursing Students Texas (UTA)

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I am hoping others will join this thread and we will be as successful as in previous classes. Relax with our well earned week off. See you on May 20th.

Funny thing about the quizzes. I studied really hard for the first one, watched all the videos (more than ones), did the reading, answered the questions in the study guide, and went back and studied any questions I got wrong. Did all this only to fail quiz one. I have never failed anything before. I was shocked. The questions were nothing like what I had been studying.

For the second quiz I really didn't do any preparing. I didn't watch any of the lectures, I didn't read any of the book or notes, and I didn't even look at the study guide. I felt like it was a waste of my time. And I got a good grade on the second quiz! Doesn't make any sense.

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See!!! Its a conspiracy!

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Hello my fellow researchers,

I haven’t posted anything here for the past 5 weeks because I have been in the darkest depths of hell. I have been following your posts, though, and even though I don’t know any of you personally, just knowing you were there and would be supportive and understanding of my situation if you heard it, really helped a lot.

So, here it is. I have been in a group of 5 throughout. In the 1st week, it became apparent that 3 members of the group were the weak links. And, when I say weak links, I really mean that they might as well not have been there at all. Their contributions for sections 1-5 were almost incoherent; many of them not even answering the questions at all, and several of them merely copying and pasting verbatim entire paragraphs from the article. My feedback, plus that of 1 other group member (who turned out to be really really great) was ignored completely. I kept delaying and delaying our submission until 11 pm Sat. in the hopes that they would revise, but they never did. I had no choice but to submit the biggest piece of crap I've ever seen and of course we received an F on the assignment along with a love note from our AC which said that this was the worst thing she has ever graded and if we ever submit anything like this again, we would all get a 0. I was in a panic and posted on the DB that everyone needed to help revise and re-submit w/i 48 hrs. The response? Nothing.

(The great and wonderful student who i mentioned above will be referred to as J. within this note).

Week 2:

J re-writes section 1-5 and section 6 all alone while I do section 7, the search strategy, benchmark, find the article and the guideline all by myself. No one else in the group seems to think it's weird or wrong that they are in a class and have nothing to do.

Our grades for week 2 for the 4 assignments: F, 0, 0, 0. Turns out our AC "accidentally" reset J's assignment portal and wiped away all traces of submission! J and I send e:mails to our AC. J sends e:mails to Drs. B, and H, and even calls Dr. B on her cell phone. I'm sending an e:mail to my advisor asking how to drop the class. After the calls to the Profs, our AC wakes up. Gives us back all the points for the week 2 assignments.

Week 3:

same pattern. J and I each do ALL sections of 8-14 bec we know we have to if we want to pass. By now, we are in almost daily contact w/ our AC. We re-do sections 6 and 7 and leave off the names of the other students. Our AC approves and understands, but when we tell her we are doing the work of 5 people, she tells us to "reach out to the group." J and I post and post and post begging them to participate. They do submit their sections for 8-14 but once again they are incoherent, plagiarized and are posted as late as Sat morning. We can't use anything they did. One girl wrote that a serendipitous finding of the study was that the study lasted for 2 weeks. Another wrote that the significance to nursing (section 12, I think) was that the authors should include this in our hospitals' yearly manditory nursing competencies. I am not understanding how she thinks Kwekkeboom et. al. are going to come to our individual hospitals to do this. J and I submit the assignment including their names despite this. J and I both get A's on the quiz and I am thanking God for this small favor.

Week 4:

By now, J and I talk on the phone a hundred times a day. I don't even know her, but she has become my best friend. We send photos of ourselves to one another. We are in survival mode. We re-do the 8-14 assignment and submit without the other names. Our AC knows. By now, Drs. B, H, and our AC are reading every single thing we write on the DB to make sure things are better. Things are NOT better. More e:mails to our AC. She asks me if there is anything she can do for me. I ask her to direct me to the nearest tall building so I can jump off and end this suffering. She replies, "I feel your pain" and tells me to hang in there. We submit the JC assignment, which we have done ourselves and leave their names off. In response to this, our AC calls J. on the phone to discuss why. She seems to understand. J and I assume the other girls have dropped or have disappeared off the face of the earth. We proceed w/o them into the APA paper.

Week 5:

It is Tuesday and there are NO posts from anyone on the DB. J and I communicate by phone or by personal e:mail now. Suddenly there is post on the DB from Dr. H who says that this is still a group and everyone needs to work together on the APA paper. J and i are shocked to see this bec they (the profs and our AC) have told us they understand exactly what is going on with the group as they are reading everything. J. calls Dr. H on the phone again. She tells her J. that does understand that there are only 2 of us doing the work of 5, but we still need to try to work together as a group anyway. So, i write a post on the DB dividing up the sections and setting a deadline for a rough draft and final versions. Meanwhile, J and i had already finished the paper on our own which we completed on Mon after going through it line by line on the phone for 4.5 hours. Now, we have to pretend that the group is going to work on this. The groups wakes up and takes their sections. The deadline i set comes and goes. No one other than J and I meet the deadline. The 3 girls post their sections at 11 pm, 7 hrs late. Their work is a mess: wrong font, no headings, wrong margins, 3-4 phrases of quotes in every paragraph, etc. I am not surprised. Two of them cut and pasted the uncorrected version into this paper. I stay up until 3:00 AM providing feedback which I know is a waste of time bec as I said, our paper is already done, and i know they will not make the changes i suggest anyway. Next day, the deadline for the final submission comes and goes. No one meets it. No one has provided feedback to anything. J and I get an e:mail from our AC (with a cc to Dr. H.) thanking us for being so nice to the group and providing feedback. She does not address the fact that no one has done anything with that feedback. She tells us now that since the other girls are having trouble with words and the English language, J and I should just make the corrections for them and submit the paper with all names. J and I are shocked bec this seems like cheating and our AC is approving this. J and I both get A's on the 2nd quiz again and I take this as a sign from God that I should not run outside and jump in front of a truck, even though i want to. I post a note to the group saying J and i will do the rest of the work, and I will post the final version of the paper on file exchange. I set another deadline of today (thurs) for everyone to read it so that we can submit it today at noon. No one responds.

The latest:

Dr. H reads my post on the DB and contradicts my plan. She reminds me that the paper is not due until Sat and that today (Thurs) is too early to submit. She wants everyone to have time to read and comment. J. reads this and sends another e:mail to our AC, Drs. B and H. saying that what they are asking us to do (make all the corrections on the paper ourselves and include the names of the other students) seems dishonest. And now we wait.

Scarletfire

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Specializes in HIV.

This class is crazy. I only have nursing leadership left to take with this program and the 2 electives, but this class by far is the most ridiculous format I've found here. Online group classes, especially a class like this, is not the right way to go about this. I've stopped listening to the OOHs because they are nearly useless. The quizzes are a joke. UGH!

Two more days. Two more days.

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Specializes in Med.Surg/ Psychiatry.

Wait!Why do I feel like I'm done with this class? Oh yes cos I am!!! Life is good. 2 more days and this will be history. So much joy! Unto the next one...Capstone here I come

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Scarletfire,

I am so sorry to hear you have had such a terrible experience in this class. I wish I could say I was surprised that the faculty expects you to continue to do the work and is still willing to give credit to those that haven't participated, that is all I have ever experienced with group papers. However, I would cut and paste the schools plagerism and dishonesty policy and send it to the faculty and tell them you took an oath to not plagiarizer or cheat on any assignment in this program. By submitting a paper with some ones name on it that didn't participate in completing it you are in fact engaging in academic dishonesty and if you were to let some one write a paper and then put your name on it and turn it in you would be thrown out of the program. It is disgusting that this kind of behavior continues to be perpetuated because there are no real consequences. You have gone above and beyond and done far more than I would be willing too. I am glad you had at least one person in your group that was willing to do their part ( way to go J). Luckily you are almost through with this hell you have been living in for the past five weeks and I hope that you never have to endure such crap again!

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[h=3]What Constitutes Scholastic Dishonesty?[/h] Scholastic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, cheating, plagiarism, and collusion on an examination or an assignment being offered for credit. Each student is accountable for work submitted for credit, including group projects.

right off their website

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oh my Scarletfire!!! I can NOT believe the hell you and j have been through these last 5 weeks. It is unreal the responses you are getting from the ac and prof, completely ridiculous is all I can say. All the other classes I have taken (minus this one) have been wonderful and gave me a positive feeling about the university. This class has been the sour grape. I thank my lucky stars that our group has been good. There are 3 of us who did the lions share of the work and 2 who posted at the deadline with minimal stuff and did not follow the OOH or rubric. We have just made the changes and submitted the group work. The quizzes are a joke. I hate the fact you don't even know what you did wrong leaving me with a sort of helpless feeling. How can you improve if you don't know what you did wrong?

I am thankful this will be over soon for me. My next class is capstone and then I am done. I have nothing good to say about this class and sadly can say I have learned nothing useful for me as a nurse. This class in just another hoop to jump through, and in my opinion clearly demonstrates how nurses eat their own. Sickening and a clear example of academia trying to over inflate their importance while subsequently turning off nurses considering advancing their professional status.

To anyone out there who still has to take this class I can only say pray you get in a good group(which is based alphabetically) and prepare for hell, it is shameful this class is allowed to continue and clearly diminishes the university's reputation.

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Wait!Why do I feel like I'm done with this class? Oh yes cos I am!!! Life is good. 2 more days and this will be history. So much joy! Unto the next one...Capstone here I come

I am right there with you!! Has anyone started a capstone thread for the class?

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To anyone out there who still has to take this class I can only say pray you get in a good group(which is based alphabetically) and prepare for hell, it is shameful this class is allowed to continue and clearly diminishes the university's reputation.

This is me, I take the class in August. As sad as it is I am going to cut my work schedule to 2 days a week during this class and am planning on doing all the work by myself from the start. I am just accepting that from the beginning and if I happen to get a good group then maybe it won't last but either way I am not going to leave my grade in the hands of people that don't care. I have heard so many horror stories about this class that I am just preparing for the worst from day one, then I won't be surprised when it happens. It is very disheartening that this is how I already feel after not even beginning but I do not want to be put in the same position as scarletfire, waiting 30 minutes before it is due and getting nothing worthy of turning in leaving me to receive an F when I have clearly done my part. If they are going to give them credit either way then I might as well do all the work from day one and ensure I get a good grade.

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It's not just the group work. It's the quizzes, the poor organization, the OOH that are a disaster, etc. It look like I'm gonna squeak out a B, but I've put in enough work to earn an A+++

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I just spent over 30 minutes completing my course survey. I wrote many paragraphs describing my issues with the course. I am also forwarding this to my advisor and higher ups at UTA. They really should be ashamed. It looks like I'm going to finish with a 'B', but it is not my grade I am unhappy with, it's the general BS of this course.

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