4 ms·

When your students submit the project, have the landing page give them 10-15 minutes to make one tiny change and resubmit. Pick something that would be trivial

When your students submit the project, have the landing page give them 10-15 minutes to make one tiny change and resubmit. Pick something that would be trivial to do in seconds for a student who did his own work, but would cause a lot of stress for someone who outsourced. Save the 1:1 interviews for students whose original program was great but whose modification went down in flames and you'll likely be talking to your outsourcers, plus identifying students who maybe could use some extra help even if they did everything themselves.

true_religion 6y ago
This will work for one semester. The next semester everyone will know about it, and keep their outsources on staff till after grades are given.
wdevanny 6y ago
Are you prepared on the basis of a student not successfully making the change to fail that student and/or expel them from their university? Sure you can invite them in for an interview, but what happens if the student just denies any accusations. I am also skeptical you could find appropriate trivial changes to request. Students, and particularly beginner students, may write very unconventional code that may not be as easily modified as a well-thought-out solution.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I guess you could take those students and review their cases personally by taking to them.
- jdsully 6y ago
  If its something like modifying a string literal then I can’t see the problem. If the program is too obtuse to permit that then its a major concern on its own.
  - jgwil2 6y ago
    If it's just modifying a string literal I suspect most would just search for that string and have little trouble even if the work is outsourced. Perhaps within a certain set of requirements there are modifications you could ask for that are not trivial and could be done in fifteen minutes but I think this is pretty hard in the general case and depends a lot on code quality.

true_religion 6y ago

This will work for one semester. The next semester everyone will know about it, and keep their outsources on staff till after grades are given.

wdevanny 6y ago

Are you prepared on the basis of a student not successfully making the change to fail that student and/or expel them from their university? Sure you can invite them in for an interview, but what happens if the student just denies any accusations. I am also skeptical you could find appropriate trivial changes to request. Students, and particularly beginner students, may write very unconventional code that may not be as easily modified as a well-thought-out solution.

saagarjha 6y ago
I guess you could take those students and review their cases personally by taking to them.
jdsully 6y ago
If its something like modifying a string literal then I can’t see the problem. If the program is too obtuse to permit that then its a major concern on its own.
- jgwil2 6y ago
  If it's just modifying a string literal I suspect most would just search for that string and have little trouble even if the work is outsourced. Perhaps within a certain set of requirements there are modifications you could ask for that are not trivial and could be done in fifteen minutes but I think this is pretty hard in the general case and depends a lot on code quality.