The Current Usage of Online Groups Chats

With the current pandemic, students everywhere have experienced problems with communication in this new method of schooling. However, with the rise of online group chats, it became easier to contact group mates, classmates, and even professors.  

An online group chat can be any kind of messaging platform on the internet that provides a real-time channel of text messages, videos, and voice messages from a sender to a receiver. Online group chats may offer point-to-point communication, such as phone calls, and even multicast communication. It is a group communication where data is given to a group of computers at the same time and it is a feature that allows for the use of webcam conferencing. 

There are many online platforms that provide these messaging features. Some popular group chats are WhatsApp, GroupMe, Google+ Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and Discord. Even prior to the pandemic, these messaging platforms have been used by people around the world for their convenience and easy accessibility. Now, more than ever, many have been using avenues like these to communicate with co-workers, classmates, friends, and family. 

Due to the vast amount of online messaging platforms, many companies try to make themselves stand out by catering their service towards a specific demographic of people. For example, WhatsApp is often used to communicate with friends and relatives while Discord is an app that is well known in the gaming community because it lets the user find communities with similar interests and allow them to interact with one another through texts, voice calls, or even video calls. 

Since schools have closed due to the upsurge of COVID-19, face-to-face communication is not an option for many and instead, students have opted for a safer way by attending class online.  

Even before the rise of the coronavirus, creating online group chats was something common in the student community of UTRGV. Most of the time these group chats are created to better understand, help, and inform fellow classmates about the class.  

“I’ve been hanging out with my friends a lot more online, like through group chats or video calling,” said Jorge Guerrero, a senior computer engineering major. “Not only does it make it easier for us to communicate, but it also makes it easier for us to continue our lives while still being productive.” 

Guerrero said that most of his group chats are on WhatsApp, an online group chat he uses often to talk to classmates about school projects. Meanwhile, he uses Facebook Messenger to stay in contact with close friends and people he knows in real life. In his free time, he also enjoys using the Discord app with his friends, where they usually go to play video games.  

“We can’t go out as much and I discovered Discord and now I have a group of friends to play games with,” said Angel Moreno, a senior English, and Criminal Justice major. “I don’t like Zoom, because it’s confusing, you have to go through a lot of verifications. Discord is more preferable … I use it to play video games and D&D (Dungeons and Dragons).” 

While online group chats can be used as a form of entertainment, used in a dishonest and compromising way that endangers a student’s academic integrity.  

It wouldn’t be the first time that a student’s integrity has been put on the line due to cheating. Truth is that the current circumstance makes it easier for students to be academically dishonest. In the comfort of one’s own home, it becomes very tempting for students to look up an answer or ask a friend for help. 

Back in 2020, UTRGV’s student-run newspaper, The Rider, wrote an article about a screenshot that was circulating on social media. The screenshot was of a group chat where students were being caught cheating. 

UTRGV’s webpage of Academic Dishonesty said, that using an electronic device to store test information or to send or receive answers for a test is considered academic dishonesty, and it may result in the student’s sanction.  

“I feel like anyone who has been on a school group chat … You’ve come across academic integrity being broken,” Guerrero said. “It’s something that we have to work together … but there’s ways to prevent it.” 

Guerrero believes that there are ways to decrease academic dishonesty among group chats. He says that professors and the school should be more invested in creating a way to make the sharing of answers more difficult.  

“I feel like it’s simple to make the problem go away,” Guerrero said. “We have the technology for that … like make it impossible for people to take screenshots about questions or things like that.” 

He also says that instead of heavily focusing on individual work, professors should encourage assignments in which students work in online groups because it promotes interaction and better learning.  

Academic dishonesty has always been a problem and it has considerably increased due to the easy access to the internet and group chats. Especially now in difficult times in which people are more focused on passing than on learning. However, it is not encouraged, if a student sees any type of academic dishonesty in a group chat or elsewhere, they should report it to a faculty member or go to Vaqueros Report It. For more information on Vaqueros Report It visit: https://www.utrgv.edu/en-us/student-experience/report-it/ 

Online group chats have both advantages and disadvantages to students. On one hand, it can be beneficial to a student’s academic life as it provides easy contact with other classmates and even teachers. On the other hand, cheating becomes easier and even more tempting to many students. At the end of the day, group chats have many uses and benefits as long as it is used responsibly.