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In this case, I believe, the prevalence of cheating among CS students isn't higher than cheating among students of other courses in the same universities, or el

by sdiq 9y ago

In this case, I believe, the prevalence of cheating among CS students isn't higher than cheating among students of other courses in the same universities, or elsewhere. Even in public health, occasionally, the prevalence of a certain disease goes up courtesy of technological advancement. The prevalence of that disease in a population that was initially low or unknown suddenly shoots up because the means with which to detect the disease has now become widely available, and not always because the incidence of that disease in that population has only started going up. Now, if other courses offered at these named universities had means of detecting students cheating in such courses, the prevalence of cheating in these other courses would probably be as high as in CS. Universities would thus need to either come up with systems that detect cheaters that has both a high true positives rate and a low false negatives rate, or, come up with a better way of assessing students that does not involve exercises that can easily be "borrowed" from the Internet.

miranda_rights 9y ago
This is exactly it, in my opinion. It's much easier to catch cheating by running homework code through something like MOSS than relying on a human TA to catch that 2 handwritten math assignments are exactly alike. I TAed both CS and Math classes at a large state school and once caught ~20% of a 50 person math class on a homework assignment because they had all copied a mis-labeled problem from the solutions manual. It's probable that they had all been cheating up to that point but I couldn't tell. It turns out, the Math department as a policy doesn't try to do anything about cheating and just encourages lecturers to base the majority of the final grade on exams. I can't say this works much better because I've sat next to a student 2 separate times during exams who obviously had their phone out and was reading from it. The rate of cheating is probably lower in exams but lecturers should be more proactive about it.
- TheSmiddy 9y ago
  At my uni you had to have all electronic devices in your bag under your desk and have all supporting materials displayed on your desk before the exam. There were floor walkers who would go up and down the aisles constantly throughout the exam looking for signs of cheating. If you were caught you were expelled. A neighbouring uni even gave students lockers and didn't permit bringing anything into their exams. Exam cheating seems like an incredibly easy problem to solve.
  - miranda_rights 9y ago
    We have similar rules for keeping your desk clear, electronics in your bag. I think the difference is having people walking the floor, which isn't effective if you only have 1 professor watching 50 people, in my opinion. It's also very difficult to know exactly how effective those preventative measures are, either in discouraging students from cheating or catching them when they do. It's apparently still easy enough to keep your phone in your pocket and pull it out onto your lap when you want to look something up. Honestly, I've always assumed it'd be impossible to cheat during those exams but have been proven wrong. In the most recent case, I and the person next to me were sitting in assigned seats in the front row, ~3 feet from the professor. He still wasn't caught, as far as I know. (I mentioned it to the professor near the end of the exam but she didn't catch him in the act). Even if she had, she'd have to be willing to go to the work of reporting him, attending the hearings, and doing the paperwork which historically doesn't result in getting the student expelled if it's the first time they've been caught. Lockers seems like a good way to prevent it, although phones are still easily hidden in a jacket pocket so you'd have to ban bulky clothing too.

by sdiq 9y ago

miranda_rights 9y ago

This is exactly it, in my opinion. It's much easier to catch cheating by running homework code through something like MOSS than relying on a human TA to catch that 2 handwritten math assignments are exactly alike. I TAed both CS and Math classes at a large state school and once caught ~20% of a 50 person math class on a homework assignment because they had all copied a mis-labeled problem from the solutions manual. It's probable that they had all been cheating up to that point but I couldn't tell. It turns out, the Math department as a policy doesn't try to do anything about cheating and just encourages lecturers to base the majority of the final grade on exams. I can't say this works much better because I've sat next to a student 2 separate times during exams who obviously had their phone out and was reading from it. The rate of cheating is probably lower in exams but lecturers should be more proactive about it.

TheSmiddy 9y ago
At my uni you had to have all electronic devices in your bag under your desk and have all supporting materials displayed on your desk before the exam. There were floor walkers who would go up and down the aisles constantly throughout the exam looking for signs of cheating. If you were caught you were expelled. A neighbouring uni even gave students lockers and didn't permit bringing anything into their exams. Exam cheating seems like an incredibly easy problem to solve.
- miranda_rights 9y ago
  We have similar rules for keeping your desk clear, electronics in your bag. I think the difference is having people walking the floor, which isn't effective if you only have 1 professor watching 50 people, in my opinion. It's also very difficult to know exactly how effective those preventative measures are, either in discouraging students from cheating or catching them when they do. It's apparently still easy enough to keep your phone in your pocket and pull it out onto your lap when you want to look something up. Honestly, I've always assumed it'd be impossible to cheat during those exams but have been proven wrong. In the most recent case, I and the person next to me were sitting in assigned seats in the front row, ~3 feet from the professor. He still wasn't caught, as far as I know. (I mentioned it to the professor near the end of the exam but she didn't catch him in the act). Even if she had, she'd have to be willing to go to the work of reporting him, attending the hearings, and doing the paperwork which historically doesn't result in getting the student expelled if it's the first time they've been caught. Lockers seems like a good way to prevent it, although phones are still easily hidden in a jacket pocket so you'd have to ban bulky clothing too.