I have a friend who is working as a research assistant while doing her Masters.

She told me that she had to mark several hundreds of scripts assigned to her by her Master's research supervisor.

Is this a common practice for a lecturer to pass down the work to the research assistant?

Is this a common practice?

Please enlighten me because I felt like she was taken advantage.

I'm not sure how common in numbers. But my friend, who is a tutor and at the same time a doctoral student in Mechanical Engineering, was instructed by his supervisor to supervise two of his Master students. According to my friend, his supervisor wants him to experience the supervising process and paves the way for him to success. They have a good supervisor-student relationship.

So, it's probably too early to jump to conclusion that she was being taken advantage of. Unless she confronts her supervisor and finds out the real reason behind the exercise.

This post has been edited by Critical_Fallacy: Jul 8 2013, 05:51 PM

In Shaolin movie, the student will always have to obey and fulfill all of the sifu requests.

Very common for doctoral students to mark papers, of course, with the guidance of marking guides prepared by the lecturers.

I guess it's common. My RA friends back in UKM used to do that too.

That is ethically not right. Your friend can check with the Dean's office and if the faculty is professional, they should stop this practice. Imagine if this practice is made known to the students/public/stakeholders.

This post has been edited by Human Nature: Jul 16 2013, 10:58 AM

So, “what are right actions?” Please enlighten us. The answer to the question probably requires another question: “What is the right way to be?” Most people would tend to agree that the moral quality or virtue of the person is fundamental. By considering your moral reasoning, we hope we can make morally enlightened choices that express our deepest convictions and highest aspirations.

The right way to be, only examiners can examine or assess scripts.

I am more concern on the validity of the marked scripts than the ethics of the supervisor. For example, how can the supervisor (lecturer) ensure that all the markings are done correctly? This can lead to various repercussion if a student who is suppose to fail, get a pass; vice versa. I cannot think of any valid reason to allow or support such arrangement.

Also, since this is a university, I presume that there is a certain level of confidentiality here. By exposing the scripts to a non-faculty member, the supervisor (lecturer) is already breaching rules.

For the sake of discussion, asking your postgraduate student to mark an examination is different from asking him to supervise a research work.

I'd say that it's common for TEACHING assistants to be grading papers, but not RESEARCH assistants. Although in the case where one is both the TA and RA, the lines may be a bit blurred. Whether or not that's following proper protocol i guess depends on what project the student is hired to work on as an RA (i.e. which specific grant is he/she paid out of) and what's the scope of his/her graduate program (in my school part of the course requirement is to teach a class). In any case, communication between the student and the supervisor is key to maintaining a good relationship That is, maybe the supervisor isn't aware that the student is being overworked?

No its not allowed. During my postgraduate we were given a handbook by the university where they outlined our responsibilities towards supervisor and vice versa. I am not sure why this is practiced here in Malaysia in UK it was different. The person who designs the questions bears the responsibility of correcting them. Honestly they are just lazy and asking others to do their jobs.

As far as Ph.D students helping Masters students, yes that is a common practice all over the world.
But no never correcting papers as research assistant.

Some even have to teach laboratory, mark assignments, help in the exam hall and supervise the final year project student. No choice, especially for those who had done a lot of research work, supervisor not happy with you, it is the end of your master under him and wasted all the work.

This post has been edited by trytohelp: Aug 23 2013, 02:14 PM