Non-Technological Ways to Combat Cheating? 191
blackcoot asks: "I'm currently T.A.ing for a required senior level class in algorithms. Having just graded the latest set of homework, I'm amused / sickened (can't make up my mind on that one) at the level of cheating. Slashdot has covered automated cheating detection in the past here and here, but I'm hoping to find some (necessarily nontech) ways of encouraging students to be a bit more honest (or at least a little less spectacularly stupid in how they cheat). I've been reporting the cheating as I've found it to the relevant profs, but it doesn't seem to be having much of an effect. Any suggestions?"
Zeros (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Zeros (Score:2)
Negatives (Score:2, Interesting)
But in the same class, we had a discussion board where people could talk about problems in the open. Maybe they won't be able to post specific pieces of code (from their homework), but at least people will have a forum to post questions where everyone can read them and help each other.
Re:Negatives (Score:2)
Re:Negatives (Score:2)
Re:Zeros (Score:2)
If some people cheat, you bring it to the Dean attention and they get kicked out of the school. I'm told this happenned in first year CS at my university in the year before I started. A whole third of the class handed in the same assignment (complete with the other person's name in the comments and everything.)
Another way to deter cheating is to have a series of quizzes that are worth say 2% in the course each. Make the quiz content obviously directly re
Re:Zeros (Score:2)
Long story short, atleast half of the assignments were copied, someone had gotten source code to the *complete* compiler and we were worried about not graduating because a bunch of cheating assholes were going to turn in complete compilers whereas we worked ou
Re:Zeros (Score:2)
Impossible Question (Score:4, Interesting)
Rus
Re:Impossible Question (Score:3, Funny)
I tried this technique - giving students near-impossible problems - but inevitably some janitor comes by and solves the in the dead of night.
Damn you night janitor, damn you.
Re:Impossible Question (Score:2)
Re:Impossible Question (Score:2)
That really depends though (Score:2)
Of course, if somebody knows that such questions will be asked, a bright soul might just mark "not possible" (which would be the correct answer)
It's about enforcement... (Score:2, Informative)
If you get less than half of the marks for those questions, you get zero for them. Seeing as they usually make up half of the exam (25% of the exam on each assignment), if you don't get 100% for everything else, you fail. This seems to have worked somewhat in s
Re:It's about enforcement... (Score:2)
Not only would that hose anyone who copied an assignment, that would be a really good exercise for everyon
Nano-Technological Ways to Combat Cheating? (Score:4, Funny)
I'd come up with a couple of interesting ways to combat cheating with it before I realised my mistake:
1) Have nano-robots floating around in your blood stream (and eyes) taking account of everything you see and write. If they witness you cheating, turn you into grey-goo.
2) As above, but instead of mushing your entire body, just take control of your hands to write "I AM A CHEAT!" all over the paper.
3) Since the above isn't actually possible yet, just *tell* the students that it is, and they've been injected with the "truth or die" serum.
Re:Nano-Technological Ways to Combat Cheating? (Score:2)
Discourage them in classes (Score:3, Insightful)
One year, I marked all the coursework for a year and found some ridiculously blatant cheating. So the next year they were informed what happened before (including the 0 mark for all parties involved). I don't remember coming across any cheating when I marked that lot.
So either they got very good at Prolog or very good at hiding their cheating. Either way I don't care as had fewer meetings to attend...
Re:Discourage them in classes (Score:3, Interesting)
In my first year of undergrad, there were some people who were terrible cheats. This was at a university that's consistently ranked among the top 5 in the UK, so you would think the students would be a little smarter. These people would literally photocopy someone else's report, stick blank white self-adhesive labels over the original name, handwrite their own name on the label, then bind the photocopied pages and hand it in. I
Re:Discourage them in classes (Score:2)
It's funny, I TA'd a course at a top 5 US school (think Cambridge, MA, not MIT) and I had two students cheat. Talk about terrible. One marked out all of his answers, then blatantly copied the other one's WORK AND ANSWERS, including the mistakes that were scratched out. to top it all off, they turned them in at the same time (ie right next to each other's in the stack of pa
Re:Discourage them in classes (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps the first day dedicate a 15 minute sermon asking the students to be completely honest as to why they are there. Some are going to be there because they have to be there (and thus more likely tempted to cheat simply to get out of the class) and some are there because they genuinely want to know / learn the material (and thus the only ones they would be cheating would be themselves)
Also differentiate between cheating on homework and cheating on exams / projects.
At the collegiate level homework is simply a formality, the professor's way of indicating which material in the book he finds important and which can be ignored, and sort of a form of extended classroom instruction. It gives the student an opportunity to apply the theories and formulas in a controlled environment and determine which he has a solid grasp of, and which not (hopefully so he can get it explained during the next class or during office hours 1 on 1.) It is to get him ready for the exams
At the exam / report / computer program level, let the students know that first sermon that you are looking for someone to make an example of, that you look forward to catching someone cheating so you can document it very well, assure a 100% no questions asked case of cheating, let the student float along the entire semester and regardless of the marks in class / exams / programs / papers that student will fail the class horribly, only not realize it until he gets his report card. You will not acknowledge that he has failed, but you will know and because he cheated he will know. And you are willing to do it for more than one. Perhaps after the first major exam or paper or program take a minute at the beginning of class to announce that one student was determined with 100% certainty to have cheated and will be failing the class regardless of their marks over the course of the semester, but don't tell them which one it was. Any one of them that was even borderline considering cheating even a little is going to fly totally straight the rest of the semester.
When the penalty is too extreme, most people will pass on the crime. As a child the penalty for stealing a banana from a fruit stand is pretty wimpy, so it happens. As an adult in Saudi Arabia the penalty for stealing a banana from a fruit stand is what(?) the loss of a finger or a hand? I don't envision too many cases of that. When the penalty for DWI in the USA was pretty wimpy it happened all the time, but now the penalty is total financial and employable destruction - and I for one don't do it.
Re:Discourage them in classes (Score:2)
I couldn't agree more with that point. I have taken many a class where I am certain of exactly who is cheating -- and when.
Basically, I find that there is a small quantity of severe cheating when the professor takes a completely lax attitude (example: 3-7 out of 400 students sitting next to each other copying answers back and forth for 10 minutes after the exam ended)
However, I find that
Re:DWI? (Score:2)
Get busted for DWI nowadays and your life is pretty well fscked.
don't depend only on homework.. (Score:3, Interesting)
the whole point of homework is to LEARN things so you can pass the exam(ok, not just for passing the exam but you get the point), if you make it possible to finish the course without exam you will end up with people who are totally clueless about the subject getting passed. one year on the c++ course over here no exam was necessary at all, all you had to do was a very bitchy, for most people for various reasons, practice assigment and be at every lecture and write down basically everything the prof said and then return those notes. so you got through by just copying everything the prof said(no understanding necessary as long as you were willing to go there twice a week and copy whatever slides he showed) and by knowing some poor soul who was willing to code it for food(the prof really sucked too, and wasn't here for another year).
anyways, have sufficiently bitchy exams and you may catch the cheaters. of course if you just except them to report in lots of written work weekly you might just be screwed if you don't have enough time.
Make them care about the assignment (Score:3, Insightful)
When they think that the quality and honesty of the work is is important to them, and to others they tend not to cheat.
One way is that we give them problems that we ourselves not fully understand, and we clearly tell them so. You present them with a challenge saying "Ok, here is this tough problem. We (the reseach group) dont quite get it yet. Maybe you will see the light and can help us get it further. If your solution/idea it is particullarly good, we will make you a coauthor on the paper on the toppic"
Obviously, this requires that you do have such a toppic. But inventing a tough or next to impossible problem is usually not a problem.
Anohter way we use is to introduce a element of competition into assignments. Make them make competing designs/solution and invite an industry/scientific expert to evaluate and judge the solutions during a workshop/panel discussion. Works wonders for us.
Caveat: this experience comes from teaching Environmental Science and Sustainability, not computer related stufff, but is should port finely to CS as well.
If you want more info/literature on the topic of chalenging education, just mention it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Forcing them to admit cheating (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Being a student of the former poster (Hey Tal, enjoyed your physics exercises
2. Being a TA myself (CS, though), I tried the following approach - every student writes the names of the students around him, in all 8 directions, in a specially drawn 3x3 box. Now, this killed 99% of cheating, as we TAs could get a quick verification of cheating suspects. It also helped us recognize cheating, since we could check the tests in the order of seating. This, coupled with Tal's method, could probably locate almost all cheaters.
Re:Forcing them to admit cheating (Score:4, Interesting)
The teacher's solution: give her a really high grade and have her read her paper aloud in class as an example of an outstanding paper.
As she read the paper it became obvious to everyone in the class what she had done and she immediately approached the teacher and apologized, rewrote the paper, and explained the whole thing to the class at the next meeting. That class never had a problem with cheating again as far as I know.
This could be applied to CS classes if there are student's with identical programs. Give them high grades and have them each present their solutions to the class separately and they will be forced to admit what they have done as it will become obvious to everyone present.
Re:Forcing them to admit cheating (Score:2)
-Paul Komarek
Re:Forcing them to admit cheating (Score:2)
This happened to me, then the arrogant T.A. sent me a note similar to yours saying I would be failing the class and probably reported to the dean for allowing someone to copy. It was all I could do not to beat him into a bloody mass.
Luckily the prof gave him a smackdown.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Forcing them to admit cheating (Score:2)
Re:Forcing them to admit cheating (Score:2)
I know it sounds like an after school special but if you can't say no to one of your friends then you will just get walked over in the work place. Personally I spend the time helping them with there issues and make sure they understand wh
Some options... (Score:2)
1. grade the students based on practical, speed tests (not essays or homeworks). What is concept? How would you use it in case? What is the error hidden in lot of code here?
2. grade the students based on my subjective perception of how much each one absorbed. pop quiz everyday, 3 or 4 students a day, noting my remarks on their answers. keep them interested.
3. to smooth 2, throw in some auto-evaluation.
Hope I ha
YOU CANT WIN YOU CANT EVEN BREAK EVEN AND (Score:4, Interesting)
This is an area where you would be well advised to be VERY careful, and
I suspect that the LESS automatic [ergo: more personal] your methods of
detecting and dealing with cheating, the greater the risk to you.
Two situations, both of which astonished me at the time:
In High School, I always thought of tests about the same way that a Jock
thinks of a Track Meet--Fun and Games with the chance of winning a worthless trophy.
When this one bad-attitude twit with a two-digit I.Q. started whispered requests for answers
during a mid-term, I thought that giving her 100% WRONG answers was a perfect
way of dealing with an insult. Want to guess who got more than TWO HOURS of
major [as in YELLING and ARM-WAVING]from both the Dean of Students and the Vice-Principal?
Not the cheating twit-bitch.
A few years later, Proctoring an Exam as part of my T-A duties, I spotted one of the test-takers
repeatedly peering into a book-bag. A few minutes later, having seen the suspected Crib-sheet,
I confiscated both it and blue book, then quietly ejected the cheater.
Want to guess who very nearly got fired?
Re:YOU CANT WIN YOU CANT EVEN BREAK EVEN AND (Score:2)
That sucks, and I am sorry. I don't agree with you on the first, but on the second instance, you really did do the right thing. You shouldn't let that sort of crap discourage you.
Of course, life isn't fair, and sometimes you just need to make a judgment call, and maybe keep your head down. However, if that's the case, there's little you can do about it unless you're willing to put up a fight (bad management sucks, yes.) Ejecting the cheater from the test is the correct thing to do.
Re:Not with that attitude (Score:2)
The fact that you don't get that, makes me worry that you ever attempted to teach teenagers in the first place. The fact that an adult role model can lead a classroom with an attitude of calling their students 'twit-bitches' with low IQs, is abusively stunning. Even when upper administrators tried to set you straight, your high and mighty attitude wouldn't let you see just how demoralizing you were. So you moved into higher ed where there were less constraints and
Re:YOU CANT WIN YOU CANT EVEN BREAK EVEN AND (Score:3, Funny)
Funny enough, when I was at Cal Berkeley, we had a massive final for some bogus filler class (Anthro 10 or something like that.) We shared the old Harmon gym with the final exam for the horrible grueling freshman physics weeder course.
These guys were so hardcore that, when someone set off the inevitable fire alarm, while we just sort of ambled out for a smoke and a chat, the physics TAs ran around screaming at their herds like a bunch of USMC drill sergeants. "BOTH HANDS WITH BLUEBOOKS AND TEST MATERIALS
A few suggestions (Score:2)
I
Grade purely on tests (Score:2)
I've never quite understood homework grading...in HS,
Re:Grade purely on tests (Score:2)
People in college are paying a great deal of money to be there in most cases (or their parents are paying it). If they don't want to learn, it should not be the teachers responsibility to drag them along kicking a screaming by grading homework. If the student doesn't know h
Re:Grade purely on tests (Score:2)
The first teacher accused me of cheating. I went to see her and she refused to budget even after offering to take an oral quiz in front of her. I filed
Re:Grade purely on tests (Score:2)
My thinking was that in classes I didn't need to study for (never cracked a CS book, never had trouble with a program), why should I have to do an hour, three nights a week of boring, time wasting work just because it was 30% of my final grade? OTOH, in my electronics classes I was more than happy to do 3 hours of problem sets three times a
Cheating how? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you mean turning in homework that has similar answers, then that's, IMO, different. Especially at that high level, you can't honestly expect all the students to work completely alone on all the homework. I know I sure worked with my friends trying to figure out the solutions to harder problems. Now, I always wrote it all up in my own words after I understood the solution. If working with peers to determine and understand the solution to a *homework* problem is cheating, then I guess I was a cheater. Considering that most places encourage students to form study groups, I think it's hypocritical of them to not expect the members of those same groups to help each other. That doesn't mean writing the solution for each other, but to help them understand. Of course, this is highly variable for the type of work for each class, but the senior level algorithms class in this case probably has a lot of thinking and writing/explaining as part of the homework.
As a TA, it's part of your job to distinguish between the two. Yes, it's hard and subjective, but that's part of the job. Fortunately, back in my TA days, I didn't have to worry about that (grading Freshman labs wasn't that hard, though I did have to grade the homework for one sememster)
As for detecting the cheating, the only low tech thing you have is that great pattern matching device sitting on top of your neck. If you think you've seen the same answer before, chances are you probably have. Go back and find the similar paper. Compare the answers -- quality, correctness, writing style, grammar, spelling, etc. Keep in mind that the students may just have been working together, and not copying one another. Use your best judgement. Maybe you just need to talk to the students yourself first. Let them know what you find unacceptable.
Always remember, however, that the point is to get the students to learn. If they can accomplish that through working through the problems together, then why stop that? All you want to stop is one person doing the work and the rest copying (because there's very little learning going on on the copiers' parts).
if you have time to loose.. (Score:2)
every time you teach the course, invent a completely new and original set of problems, and assign them individually to students. Use a non standard language (such as Fortran 95 - yes - ) hard to install on home computers, and watch the students as they work in your computer lab, so they cannot get outside help from people who code C++ for food (or wannabe boyfriends of cute students).
Only problem with this approach : one has to be extremely creative...you can get away with, say, three set of twelve assign
Cheating freeze (Score:2)
Typewriter and Mimeograph (Score:2)
Ideally, you'd keep everything in your head and then just verbalize in front of your students. Failing that, find a typewriter and a mimeograph machine. (Do they still make mimeographs? Dunno, but there's always the office copier).
Re:Typewriter and Mimeograph (Score:2)
do nothing (Score:2)
Besides, people who cheat in these classes will just go on to be your managers and bosses eventually (assuming you leave academia)... Move along people, nothing more to see here.
Two ways (Score:3, Insightful)
Two: assign the whole class one project, something that a smaller number can't complete. This method reflects what I like to call "the real world".
Re:Two ways (Score:2)
What happens is the 2 or 3 uberStudents will do the project while the other 27 will either simply stand around, get in the way, arrange accomodations to insure the 2 or 3 have access to whatever they need to succeed, bring food so the 2 or 3 can concentrate on the task, possibly even manage some of the real world issues on the behalf of those 2 or 3 in order to
is it your place to do anything? (Score:2)
Some slashdotters have gone to extremes and mentioned giving both parties big fat 0's. But is this really the right thing to do? What if they happened to reach a spectacularly similar solution by coincidence? Do you wish to defend and testify in a review committee session?
The reason that it may appear as if your prof isn't doing anything could be that it's not his place to decide anything about it either!
Surprisi
Ok, I'll bite (Score:2)
For exercises that involve a bunch of questions being answered, you need to ensure that each person only has to answer a subset of the questions. The plan is that they can't simply copy one person's answers, they have to find enough people to 'collect the whole set', which is a little harder.
Generating a list of variations on which person should answer is easy (think binary). Assign each person a variation number along with an assignment (write t
GPL or sommat (Score:2)
Ie copied the core algo, but wrote the rest 25% or less
copied the algo, but rewoked it to be more efficient
75 or what ever
-- tim
Incentive? Expel them. (Score:2)
After they've been through 2 or 3 schools, maybe they'll start to get the picture.
Assignments with personalisation (Score:2)
Therefore, while students could still work together to some extent, each assignment had to be "solved" individually.
Presentations (Score:2)
Working together is great, as long as everyone comes away understanding the answers.
In the undergrad algorithms class at CMU some of the assignments are "presentations," where a group of students solves problems together, then presents the answers in front of a professor or TA. At the time of the presentation, the TA picks the question that a student will answer randomly, so that it's in his interest (and his group's interest) to understand the answer to each question.
This is actually *easier* than gradin
Is there actually a problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
When you think there's a need for a program, what's the first thing you do? I always look to see if someone's done it first. Even if you do have to start from square one, examining other peoples' work can make your first implementatio
Re:Is there actually a problem? (Score:2)
As a software developer you are expected to solve problems in the most efficient manner possible, including the reuse of existing code. As a computer scientist you are expected to demonstrate an ability to derive solutions from basic principles and operate in areas where there is no precedent, i.e. in research. Upon graduation, you should be equally qualified to g
so don't grade problem sets (Score:2)
As a result, the lazy students who would otherwise have cheated simply to pass the class, simply don'
Re:so don't grade problem sets (Score:2)
Something I've seen in the workplace (Score:3, Funny)
Here's a trick I've seen in the real world that gets the results you want in short order:
-- MarkusQ
Questions that encourage/discourage cheating (Score:4, Insightful)
But I've seen questions that honest/smart students cheat on. I've heard of people in the labs shouting answers across the room. The questions that caused this kind of cheating tended to be trial-and-error questions with one line solutions. In any class students are going to work together, and I think it's wonderful if they can help each other understand what's going on.
So to avoid cheating, the best way is to create problems where the understanding is separated from the answer. This way students that just get the answer really miss out on something that the students who solved it honestly get.
UCRs technique (Score:2, Interesting)
To catch cheating, they use MOSS [berkeley.edu], and an anonymous cheating report form [ucr.edu]
If you cheat twice, you're likely to get suspended for a year or get expelled.
The policy on academic dishonesty [ucr.edu]
Answers on the internet (Score:2)
So don't rely on exercises from the book, or perhaps modify them enough so that the answer changes substantially. Even rewording them slightly will fool clueless students.
Re:Answers on the internet (Score:2)
Yeild to the inevitable (Score:3, Funny)
deprive future software engineers of what might
be their *only* opportunity to work as a team
in a realistic simulation of a workplace environment
before their graduation?
If you wanted to make things more realistic, you
would let everyone google for their test answers,
give 'A's to your friends, and randomly pick
fat people to fail.
It's Late, Minimize Fascism (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm hoping to find some (necessarily nontech) ways of encouraging students to be a bit more honest
By this time of their lives, it's a bit late.
Morals and ethics are best instilled at an earlier age and society has relies fundamentally on parents to do this (even if parents don't do it, leave it to others, etc.) People can argue for eternity whether society ought to or is obligated to pick up or replace what incompetent parents leave as a legacy.
But this is an institution of higher learning. These people ought to have a clue and be able to put two and two together.
That is , a word to the wise suffices.
The prof should mention once in class that there have been cases where homeworks bore a striking similarity and that he hopes everyone will try to get the maximum learning benefit from doing their homework as independently as possible and that he and the T.A.'s have office hours if anyone is having particular problems. Competent students that simply let others crib without learning are not doing the cheater any favors, any more than buying an alcoholic a drink does that person any favors.
If someone wants to hang themselves and their career by cheating, they've already got enough rope to do it.
When I was an undergrad there was an honor system that included exams which were:
By comparison, some early coursework in grad school was really ugly. I had to roll out of bed early to go take some stupid scheduled final exam with 40 other sweating, anxious students at the same time. Until you've experienced how good things can be you don't realize just how palpable the environment of no-trust and no-respect really is. It sucks, and it's not worth sacrificing to punish a few cheaters that will hurt themselves in the long run.
Set different questions for them... (Score:2)
If there are two or more people who you suspect of cheating/copying, give them both a zero (of course, it helps if you've previously warned the students that copying will be rewarded with a zero mark) and have them complete different sets of questions the next time around.
If there's still copying going on with the second homework assignment then it should be easier to detect
Solution (Score:2)
Collaboration vs. Cheating (Score:4, Interesting)
I've always found that I was much more motivated to do the work, and learned more from the process, if I had the ability to work with someone else--whether the policy allowed it or not.
Working alone is prone to getting stuck at one place and not being able to move on, whereas when you work with a partner (or partners), there's a potential for a different perspective, which almost always helps. I found that I learned a lot simply from hearing a different take on the problem (usually, after getting stuck in solving it :) as opposed to spending hours agonyzing over a stumbling point and possibly not really advancing from it, thus learning very little from the assignment. Furthermore, many people learn a lot by just discussing the problem, as it forces them to think along paths their brains would not take if they were left to themselves; many things fall into their place and sink in much better in this fashion (for example, how many of you have come up with an answer to a tough question while explaining your question to a friend?). And let's be realistic, in the real world, many things are done collaboratively and are beyond any single person.
A number of my CS classes at Cornell had a very simple policy, which has worked remarkably well (and I've seen this both as a student and a TA). The policy was, roughly:
1. You are allowed to discuss the problem with others
2. You have to give credit to the people you discussed the problem with (write down their names on your assignment)
3. Everyone has to do their own writeup
This policy had the benefits of letting people bounce ideas off of each other, to learn from others, to pick up things they wouldn't otherwise pick up. At the same time, requiring everyone to do their own writeup ensured that the people understood the solutions well enough to be able to formulate them well on paper--not an easy task if you're just trying to blindly copy parts of a solution without understanding it.
What I saw with that policy in place was that people tended to form stable study groups, the overall results were pretty good (yet sometimes people in the same study group might have rather different explanations of the same things!), and also, in the rare cases of cheating, the cheating was relatively obvious and easy to spot.
Define it away (Score:2)
I'm serious: in the spirit of "pair programming" and "egoless programming", make "cheating" or collaboration permissible. Just point out that the submissions had better not look identical, and make them disclose who they're collaborating with. If you think there are one or two students who are supplying the whole group, cut them out and give then different assignments.
I've worked with this kind of notion both as a student and as a professor, and I'm convinced that it
Whatever happened to (Score:2)
I've wondered for years, though, what good it does once you're past fractions, to assign graded homework that just consists of a series of written examples or problems to be solved. Life doesn't work that way, and the people who're up to their nec
The professors know and do nothing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Although I generally agree that at college level, the students are old enough to know right from wrong, they are learning important life lessons while at University, and one of those needs to be "Cheat, and you lose". The others are the answers to the questions "How much can I drink before I fall down?", and "Is that it?"
Re:The professors know and do nothing? (Score:2)
There are universities out there where the academic offenses committee treats the professor as the guilty party while giving every available opportunity to the student to weasle out of the punishment. One can hardly blame a professor who choses not to report under those circumstances.
Just something to keep in mind.
Simple solution. (Score:2)
The problem here is that there is no reward for honest behaviour. Yea, yea, a degree is the reward. But if you're good at cheating, you get that *plus* you have a chance to get top marks in your class and graduate with "honours" *plus* you get to concentrate on the stuff you're actually interested in learning. Once you learn that many people don't actually want to be in the class you're teaching, you'll realize that
This is not your problem (Score:2)
I just started taking classes again, and one of my profs stated that any cheating would result in an immediate F for the course. He claimed that at least once a year he has a student in his office crying after being caught. He always states this policy on day 1 so that there is no surprise. I respect that, and wish that more faculty weren't such candy asses about enforcing academic accountability.
"OK, so you copied your lab notes..." (Score:2)
My wife was student-teaching a biology in a senior high school some years back. Students were supposed to work independently and write up their lab notes individually.
To cut to the chase, here's what my wife said to a student:
"OK, so you copied your lab notes. That was bad enough. But a carbon copy? What were you thinking?
And then to put them in my in-basket with the original directly on top of the carbon?"
Two suggestions (Score:2)
The basic message, at least in the Computer Science Department was to give credit to others. Most professors didn't care if you worked in groups on assignments; in fact, it was strongly encouraged in many classes. You generally had to turn in your own work, and it had to be your own work.
For example, the group would wo
Like most hard problems - change the architecture (Score:2)
Well what happens with people who copy ?... Well homework was worth 10-20% of the grade, tests 50-60% (labs the rest) so if you weren't doing/understanding the homework - you flunked the test
Is the purpose of the homework to really show that I know how to type in some silly answer - or is i
make them sign off on rules (Score:2)
You can also get rid of some of the easy opportunities for cheating, without making your class into a prison camp. For instance, I just handed out a take-home test in my physics
Cheating (my experience) (Score:2)
I remember back to first year CS at University of Waterloo (long time ago). We had been instructed to talk to others, to share information, but to leave the pencils down when you do it.
Anyways, it was the last assignment. I get back my assignment, -100%! It was a direct copy of so-and-so. Now, I'd never heard of the other guy, so I went to the TA, toting the text book I had scarfed the answer from.
When I got there, the TA said that the other student had already been in (with a different book/same
misconduct policy (Score:2)
This is a people issue. Make and use a process that is described clearly [uq.edu.au] and mentioned often. Inform everyone of misconduct cases.
Our numbers are going down.
Ralf
Pop quizzes. (Score:2)
Accept It (Score:2)
1. Accept it. In most classes where there were paper-based assignments (think Math, Physics, etc.) our profs would basically say on the first day of class "I know you're all going to work together on these assignments. Fine. But remember that exams arn't done in groups." and would then point out the fact that assignments were only worth ~10%. Thus, we all learned the best way to work as a team, go
Some honor codes work well (Score:2)
well at minimizing cheating
lot of structural support, though.
My shameful past... (Score:2)
Back when I was taking Bio II in college, it was the "weeding" course - the hard one to pass. The grading for the class was quite simple. 50% for the final, 50% for everything else - NO CURVES
All exams were given in the lecture hall. I don't want to say there was a LOT of cheating going on, but it was blatant. I was running a C, and seriously bummed, because the only people I knew getting B+ or greater were cheating. I decided to drop out, and put in my paperwork t
Discourage Them On The First Day Of Class (Score:2)
Does homework matter? (Score:2)
Re:Let the job market sort it out. (Score:2)
Cheating in school is really just using all the resources at your availability. Ethics don't seem to play a big part in business either. I'm interested in how you think cheating affects a persons prospects of being successful.
In my opinion cheaters are the best people to work with. They look for the best/easiest solution to the problem. I seriously doubt that there is someone who has never lied or cheated in their lives (the mythical Jesus aside).
There is in my opinio
Re:Let the job market sort it out. (Score:2)
In my opinion cheaters are the best people to work with. They look for the best/easiest solution to the problem.
Mmmm. Work with me! Be on my team!
You can do all the work and when you're not around I'll take the credit and dish you out the blame for mistakes to upper management.
[So, no, thanks, I'll avoid working with cheaters at every opportunity.]
Re:Let the job market sort it out. (Score:2)
Good job: you redefined the argument to give your side the advantage. While some 'using available resources' is not 'lazy' and even some 'lazy' is not 'cheating', all 'cheating' is 'lazy'.
In Latin, I used to record class lectures. It just so happens that, most of the time, the teacher would spend the class period translating our homework. I used all resources at my disposal and listened to the class lecture a se
Re:Let the job market sort it out. (Score:2)
For example, in your job do you ever look at a reference manual or book? In college that would be considered "cheating". In the business world that is considered okay.
The difference being that the goal in business is to accomplish a certain task, while the goal in education is to learn something. Given the very different goals, it makes sense that different rules apply.
Re:Let the job market sort it out. (Score:2)
What college did you go to where that would be considered cheating? Your previous argument was against hw/papers. The only time you can't use a reference is on tests (and hell, half of mine were open book, not that that ever helped any of us when you're supposed to design some piece of hardware or whatever)
No, let's take a look at the d
Re:Let the job market sort it out. (Score:2)
In my opinion cheaters are the best people to work with. They look for the best/easiest solution to the problem. I seriously doubt that there is someone who has never lied or cheated in their lives (the mythical Jesus aside).
What happens when bureaucrats at NASA cheat? Creative problem solving is one thing- they used that to put us on the moon. Cheating leads to not checking whether your calculations should be
Re:Let the job market sort it out. (Score:2)
Re:Let the job market sort it out. (Score:2)
They'd make fine Enron, Worldcom and SCO executives
Yes, they do. (Score:2)
Who did they hire instead? Someone who kept asking to copy off of me in class. Hell, one of the projects that he cited in his portfolio was actually based on a
Re:Easy (Score:2)
Re:Careful of wrongful accusation (Score:2)