The students were dumb for thinking they could get away with it, and the faculty were dumber for letting it happen in the first place. Ring-tones aren't the only thing hot on cell phones:

The University of Maryland is investigating 12 students for allegedly using the "text messaging" functions on their cell phones or pagers to access correct answers during fall exams.

The students are accused of receiving silent messages from friends who had access to answer keys for the tests, campus officials said Friday.

It is the latest conflict in the continuing struggle between technology and academic integrity. Though quick to jump on the Web and embrace the laptop, schools across the country have been confronted with the problem of students using the same tools to plagiarize essays from the Internet. [AP]

Mr. Zacker said the accused students are suspected of exploiting a common practice at College Park, in which professors post answer keys outside their offices after giving an exam so that students can immediately calculate how they did.

Some professors, he said, have gotten in the habit of posting the keys while students are still taking the exam, assured students would not be able to see the answers until they had turned in their tests.

It is unclear exactly how the accused students may have cheated, Mr. Zacker said. But preliminary investigations suggest that they may have arranged to have friends outside the classroom consult the keys and call in the answers.

Some professors had posted answer keys on their Web sites, and officials believe that students may have used cell phones equipped with Web browsers to look up the answers themselves while still in the exam room.