Is it feasible/acceptable for me to convey my concerns to staff regarding performance of classmates on coursework reports?

An undergraduate student is absolutely in no position to make any institutional changes in regards to the problems you've observed. In many cases, even the full professors have little ability to change the situation, due to departmental or administrative requirements for certain passing rates or median scores out of a class, etc. Possibly the faculty have seen this, and/or counseled concerned students about it, hundreds of times already.

You should take some amount of confidence that this is evidence you're ready for your next big step (which seems well-timed, in that your Master's starts next year). You know how to properly research, cite, support, and use LaTeX to write a paper; and you will doubtlessly be using those skills in your next position.

Frankly, the librarian was very much out of place to put the burden of responsibility for this on an undergraduate student. I call "foul" on that.


It is very unlikely that any action on your part would help future students. The issues you report are already visible to the professors.

They can see whether reports lack bibliographies, or have bibliographies that reference Wikipedia. They could set marking rules that penalize those things to such an extent that students would have to do better, if they thought it appropriate.

If they cared, for some strange reason, what tools students are using to prepare their reports they could insist on reports in the preferred format.


To answer your specific question, "Is it feasible, or even acceptable, for me to communicate concerns with staff, or to relay the request of the librarian with my own concerns added?", it is certainly OK to share your concerns. But recognize that, as other answers have indicated, the staff at your university are not blind to the work that your peers are submitting; they may have similar concerns, but lack the practical ability to do anything about them.

The natural question that arises then is: if the staff does not have the ability to address your concerns, what can you, as a student, do on your own? Here are some things that have proven effective in my experience:

  • Understand that your peers are dealing with personal and academic challenges, some of which they may have in common with you and some of which they may not. Realize that what is important to you is not necessarily as high a priority to them. You will be much more successful if you are able to address your concerns in a way that also addresses things that are important to your peers.
  • Get involved in student clubs and organizations, and organize workshops and other club events to help your peers gain useful skills. For example, as an electrical engineering undergraduate I was on the board of my university's IEEE student branch, and we organized workshops on technical and soft skills, participation in student research competitions, and other activities for our peers.
  • Look for opportunities to get more involved in your department. If you are the undergraduate research assistant who attends all the department seminars and helps faculty and graduate students with their research and teaching, the well-known and effective TA for the first year physics labs, or someone else who all the faculty in your department know and respect, your suggestions and concerns will be taken more seriously. Not because your concerns are unwelcome now, but just because you don't have a lot of insight into the inner workings of your department, what they are struggling with, and what their priorities are.