<p>I attend a university that generally frowns upon backfiles but does not explicitly prohibit them in the code of conduct. Professors have been known to take students to task for using backfiles, but at the same time, it’s an open secret that some student groups and almost all fraternities provide backfiles to their members. What are your views on using backfiles?</p>
<p>I’m looking at this problem from two angles.
As a group study tutor, should I give backfiles to my students, especially if they really want them, since other tutors are handing them out like candy? This is my second year; last year, I passed out detailed notes, doubled the time we spent together (for free) to work on problem solving strategies, and generated my own database of mock questions. But… they’re not quite the same as the real McCoy, although my students scored relatively well.</p>
<ol>
<li>As a student about to take the hardest course in my major to date. So far, I’ve avoided backfiles, mostly because I’m too arrogant to use them. Just for my own happiness’s sake, I’d like to continue avoiding them. However, my upperclassman friends say that it’s a necessary evil, that everyone uses them, and that I’ll be at a significant disadvantage without them. What should I do? Is it worth the higher grade?</li>
</ol>
<p>A lot of classes I’ve taken have offered past exams. Hell even the statistics course I just finished offered them, and it’s considered a difficult class.</p>
<p>Biased opinion here, but I personally feel that backfiles should definitely be allowed and distributed. This applies even if the professor explicitly prohibits them and actively takes action to prevent their distribution!</p>
<p>We go to college to learn. Professors are there to help facilitate the process. Since backfiles are a great resource for learning, prohibiting them goes against the very thing that professors are paid to do.</p>
<p>I happily distribute backfiles to all my friends, usually openly, but when certain professors prohibit it and it’s impractical to drop the class, I’ll discreetly leak some. Thankfully, this has been mostly a non-issue in classes I’ve taken so far; because of people like me, pretty much every professor in my department embraces backfiles as both a learning resource and to level out the playing field.</p>
<p>The professors here have sort of offered an olive branch: they will provide exams from the last 2-3 years. However, we are not supposed to look at older exams, and I could lose my tutoring job (has happened to others, since it’s through the department).</p>
<p>Addendum: the backfiles for the extremely difficult class I will take next semester pertain mostly to the weekly homework. Personally, I would call this copying, but apparently, the professors don’t teach very well, and some have said the course is pretty much impossible without backfiles.</p>
<p>Backfiles include homework assignments, quizzes, exams, and other things turned in for points from past years. Some people include notes on the class and text too.</p>
<p>Update: backfiles turned out to be unncessary for the terribly difficult course, which wasn’t impossible. Huzzah! I did not give backfiles to students in my study group, but I gave them my notes. Some did well, some did okay, some did not so well.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what a backfile is but if it’s exams from the past then most of the professors that I’ve had gave us backfiles along with solutions for us to use a study aids.</p>