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People are doing that at my institution. The average GPA increased by several points. The thing is, if it's perceived that it's easier to cheat than to learn,

by aaplok 6y ago

People are doing that at my institution. The average GPA increased by several points. The thing is, if it's perceived that it's easier to cheat than to learn, people will do that, honor system or not. I admit that there is a difference between an institutionalised honor system, designed with respect toward and in collaboration with students, and a last-minute arrangement by an unprepared organisation. Students have been putting up with a lot of nonsense from universities this year. Their trust might have eroded. If universities are not perceived as honorable themselves, a honors system is not the answer here unfortunately.

908B64B197 6y ago
> The average GPA increased by several points. The credibility of your school went down by the same amount. If cheating is rampant, either the culture is broken or you are selecting students wrong.
- aaplok 6y ago
  > The credibility of your school went down by the same amount. That was the point I was trying to make. This is not a problem of a single school, or a single university. This is happening across the sector. The success of contract cheating websites, and the inability of universities worldwide to deal with them, attest to that. > If cheating is rampant, either the culture is broken or you are selecting students wrong. Sure. People are willing to risk jail to get their kids into top universities. A kid whose family borrowed money to send them study in a Western institution might not see honor as their top priority. It is not a student selection problem: the culture is broken all the way down. Lest I come across as pessimistic, I am not. Academics may not be able to fix the structural problems, but we have more control over our own little part of our world than in the private sector. I, for one, don't rely on exams anymore for the time being and have not seen a GPA increase in my course. A honor-based exam system is not something I rely on, however.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    > A kid whose family borrowed money to send them study in a Western institution might not see honor as their top priority. It is not a student selection problem: the culture is broken all the way down. I've heard of rampant cheating abroad, and it's part of the reason I believe some foreign degrees to be worthless. Truth is western institutions shouldn't admit from places where cheating is rampant. Else we're pretty much encouraging this broken culture.
goldcd 6y ago
I think the problem is pretty human. (or maybe I'm exposing my weaker moral character than the rest of you upstanding citizens). I think the vast majority of people who have entered some program of learning, want to 'learn' - and will try to. Where it gets tricky is when you find yourself backed into a corner. Say you know (for whatever reason) you're 90% going to fail - do you accept that? Or do break out the Hail Mary cheat - what have you got to lose? What's strange is that the moment you leave academia, suddenly this behaviour is acceptable. From the "Fake it 'til you make it" in acclaimed books, to the "carefully positioned demo that wireframes over the chasms to focus on the bit that exists - but you fully intend to fix the rest if the budget appears" There's some collective cognitive dissonance that imagines all are equal, they go through the same trials of education (ignoring what people can afford, whether they have to work another job, they're commuting in from miles away and a thousand other variables) - but they can all be compared by their meritocratic grade at the end. (before they enter the cess-pit of the working world). I've reached the point where I've even lost my own point. Maybe it's just that the person who managed to cheat themselves to a pass against a barrage of technology, unveiled at the last moment, is a more rounded and useful person than the one that swallowed the book and scraped a pass.
- salawat 6y ago
  >Say you know (for whatever reason) you're 90% going to fail - do you accept that? Or do break out the Hail Mary cheat - what have you got to lose? This is almost the critical pass/fail decision in my opinion, because in the real world, on actually difficult or unsolved problems the correct decision is to escalate, clearly communicate you have an issue, and either be directed to someone who can get you unstuck, or inform resource allocators that additional resources will be required to fulfill their request. There is nothing more destructive to organized, value producing work than to vouchsafe that it's a'ok hunky dory when it isn't. I'm pretty sure I made it through some of my own coursework by the skin of my teeth because I could at least describe in enough detail where I was coming up short that the instructor had confidence that with more time and experience I'd get it. At least, I think. I'm still a bit fuzzy on thoss last couple years of college from the sleep deprivation. I get bits and pieces of lucidity in between the recollections of "Oh God, I need sleep." Theoretical Comp Sci is still "that one class I'm not sure if I really got anything good out of besides intuition into what is and is not a candidate for being computible", and Linear Algebra was "I've killed more trees writing out the work for these problems than anyone should reasonably have to."
criddell 6y ago
Maybe part of the solution is to get rid of GPAs and switch to a pass-fail system.

by aaplok 6y ago

908B64B197 6y ago

> The average GPA increased by several points. The credibility of your school went down by the same amount. If cheating is rampant, either the culture is broken or you are selecting students wrong.

aaplok 6y ago
> The credibility of your school went down by the same amount. That was the point I was trying to make. This is not a problem of a single school, or a single university. This is happening across the sector. The success of contract cheating websites, and the inability of universities worldwide to deal with them, attest to that. > If cheating is rampant, either the culture is broken or you are selecting students wrong. Sure. People are willing to risk jail to get their kids into top universities. A kid whose family borrowed money to send them study in a Western institution might not see honor as their top priority. It is not a student selection problem: the culture is broken all the way down. Lest I come across as pessimistic, I am not. Academics may not be able to fix the structural problems, but we have more control over our own little part of our world than in the private sector. I, for one, don't rely on exams anymore for the time being and have not seen a GPA increase in my course. A honor-based exam system is not something I rely on, however.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > A kid whose family borrowed money to send them study in a Western institution might not see honor as their top priority. It is not a student selection problem: the culture is broken all the way down. I've heard of rampant cheating abroad, and it's part of the reason I believe some foreign degrees to be worthless. Truth is western institutions shouldn't admit from places where cheating is rampant. Else we're pretty much encouraging this broken culture.

goldcd 6y ago

I think the problem is pretty human. (or maybe I'm exposing my weaker moral character than the rest of you upstanding citizens). I think the vast majority of people who have entered some program of learning, want to 'learn' - and will try to. Where it gets tricky is when you find yourself backed into a corner. Say you know (for whatever reason) you're 90% going to fail - do you accept that? Or do break out the Hail Mary cheat - what have you got to lose? What's strange is that the moment you leave academia, suddenly this behaviour is acceptable. From the "Fake it 'til you make it" in acclaimed books, to the "carefully positioned demo that wireframes over the chasms to focus on the bit that exists - but you fully intend to fix the rest if the budget appears" There's some collective cognitive dissonance that imagines all are equal, they go through the same trials of education (ignoring what people can afford, whether they have to work another job, they're commuting in from miles away and a thousand other variables) - but they can all be compared by their meritocratic grade at the end. (before they enter the cess-pit of the working world). I've reached the point where I've even lost my own point. Maybe it's just that the person who managed to cheat themselves to a pass against a barrage of technology, unveiled at the last moment, is a more rounded and useful person than the one that swallowed the book and scraped a pass.

salawat 6y ago
>Say you know (for whatever reason) you're 90% going to fail - do you accept that? Or do break out the Hail Mary cheat - what have you got to lose? This is almost the critical pass/fail decision in my opinion, because in the real world, on actually difficult or unsolved problems the correct decision is to escalate, clearly communicate you have an issue, and either be directed to someone who can get you unstuck, or inform resource allocators that additional resources will be required to fulfill their request. There is nothing more destructive to organized, value producing work than to vouchsafe that it's a'ok hunky dory when it isn't. I'm pretty sure I made it through some of my own coursework by the skin of my teeth because I could at least describe in enough detail where I was coming up short that the instructor had confidence that with more time and experience I'd get it. At least, I think. I'm still a bit fuzzy on thoss last couple years of college from the sleep deprivation. I get bits and pieces of lucidity in between the recollections of "Oh God, I need sleep." Theoretical Comp Sci is still "that one class I'm not sure if I really got anything good out of besides intuition into what is and is not a candidate for being computible", and Linear Algebra was "I've killed more trees writing out the work for these problems than anyone should reasonably have to."

criddell 6y ago

Maybe part of the solution is to get rid of GPAs and switch to a pass-fail system.