Is it cheating if you specifically take this class taught by this professor (as opposed to the same class taught by a different professor) because you know her final exam will be open notes and collaborative?
Of course not. Unless the goal of studying is to maximize arbitrary values on a piece of paper they give you at the end.
One need to keep in mind, that "cheating" in school means nothing else than stepping outside arbitrary rule system that is, most of the time, totally opposed to what a honest, rational person would do in real life. Not that it's all bad; education is a training framework.
One need to keep in mind, that "cheating" in school means nothing else than stepping outside arbitrary rule system that is, most of the time, totally opposed to what a honest, rational person would do in real life. Not that it's all bad; education is a training framework.