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From the many students I know, I can tell you that cheating is rampant in online learning. The average GPA has gone up 0.3 points at my alma mater. I don't thi

From the many students I know, I can tell you that cheating is rampant in online learning. The average GPA has gone up 0.3 points at my alma mater. I don't think people understand just how widespread it is. This software isn't ideal but there's no good solutions here short of major rethink of how these classes, and possible all of the college, is structured.

ghaff 6y ago
Certainly I had many take-home exams in college and grad school. (Of course, I had many proctored in-person exams too.) So one solution is to switch to open book take home exams as much as possible. The other frankly is to have an honor code and, at some point, recognize that some people will cheat but they're mostly hurting themselves.
- andreilys 6y ago
  Scholarships, internships and grad school spots are a scarce resource. Students who cheat can secure a higher GPA with less effort. That effort can be redirected towards looking for internships and improving grad school applications. So I fail to see how cheaters are only “hurting themselves”. Morality aside, if you pursue a cheating strategy your pay-off will be much higher when we consider the scarcity of resources available to students.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    That's why I wrote "mostly." Some reasonable measures to deter casual cheating may well be worthwhile. At some point though you draw a line where you start hurting honest students more than cheaters. You're not going to prevent it 100% absent draconian measures.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    > Students who cheat can secure a higher GPA with less effort. That effort can be redirected towards looking for internships and improving grad school applications. This is definitely not the reason why most people cheat. > Morality aside, if you pursue a cheating strategy your pay-off will be much higher As with any kind of lie, you will have to cheat more and more to compensate for previous cheating, and eventually your little web of lies will come back and bite you in the ass.
    - ativzzz 6y ago
      The first part certainly is why they cheat; higher grades allow easier admissions to jobs and better schools. > As with any kind of lie, you will have to cheat more and more to compensate for previous cheating, and eventually your little web of lies will come back and bite you in the ass. Completely disagree. People cheat to climb the ladder of life without having to put in the work or having the resources required to do bypass that ladder. However, once you climb the ladder high enough, it is much harder to fall back down. Sure you're not going to be a good doctor if you cheat your way through med school but if you cheat your way through undergrad and get into a better program with better resources, more driven peers and better professors, you are better off regardless.
      - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
        At least the cheaters I know cheat because a) they’re unable to pass without cheating and/or b) they’re avoiding putting in effort. The jobs are part of the goal, but that’s true for basically everyone that attenda college. I don’t know anyone who cheats and invests all the saved time into grinding Leetcode. > if you cheat your way through undergrad and get into a better program with better resources, more driven peers and better professors, you are better off regardless. Until you end up doing a surgery. You can’t cheat the real world. Your lack of knowledge will show eventually, and then it’ll limit your opportunities.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  > recognize that some people will cheat but they're mostly hurting themselves. This assumes that what you learn in university is the useful part, not the grade or the allocation of time that could be used for hackathons, projects, clubs, or internships.
wolfgke 6y ago
Make exams that are harder to cheat. For example: - oral exams via video call - written exams where students are distributed over a larger area (e.g. the university rents a warehouse for the examination time) so that the COVID-19 spreading risk is nevertheless kept very small.
- huhnmonster 6y ago
  This has been done in my last exam phase and has worked well. They cranked the AC to 11, which made it quite an unpleasant envirommemt, but I would rather wear a jacket than take online exams
  - OldHand2018 6y ago
    I can remember taking many exams in the athletic field house at my university back in the 1990s. It was pretty standard when you were in a large class. The desks were so far apart that the current "social distancing" standards would be met. I remember that many courses had multiple variations of the same exam given to students to further reduce cheating. I'm taking an online masters right now and have taken a few (pre-pandemic) proctored exams. The nearby university offers to proctor any exam for $10. They have a bunch of rooms with desks, and it's no big deal at all. This proctoring technology thing has gone too far and too fast. It was a knee-jerk reaction, and with a lot of complaints I bet that a lot of it gets dropped.
TrackerFF 6y ago
At least where I'm from (Norway), grade transcripts will show a class grade distribution/histogram in the background of your grade. That way the viewer / reader will be able to compare your results to your class. Obviously if 80% of your class got A, that A is not going to look as impressive. On the other hand, if you're the only student that got A, while the class distribution is monotonically increasing towards Failure, that's going to be a good thing for you.
- RegnisGnaw 6y ago
  When I went to college, our department gave two grades on the transcript: percentage mark and class ranking. The ranking is your ranking among all the sections of that class taught that semester.
hahamrfunnyguy 6y ago
Cheating is rampant in in-person learning as well. We shouldn't be treating online learning the same as in-person learning. I took distance learning classes back in the early 00's. Some courses required proctored exams, some had open book exams. For proctored exams, I would do them in the library, then the librarian would send the test back to the school. The open book exams weren't really any easier - you were expected to know the material and therefore the tests were more challenging. In my professional experience, GPA has little correlation with how well someone can do a job. GPA going up or down by 0.3 points really doesn't mean that much to me.
908B64B197 6y ago
At some point, when GPA is used exclusively to filter-out and rank students instead of as one of the many factors in an application, you get that metrics gamification.
t-writescode 6y ago
Let's roll this back and ask a different question: Are the students learning the material in a way that they can display mastery outside of an exam setting / on the job? If so, who cares if cheating numbers / grades have been inflating?

ghaff 6y ago

Certainly I had many take-home exams in college and grad school. (Of course, I had many proctored in-person exams too.) So one solution is to switch to open book take home exams as much as possible. The other frankly is to have an honor code and, at some point, recognize that some people will cheat but they're mostly hurting themselves.

andreilys 6y ago
Scholarships, internships and grad school spots are a scarce resource. Students who cheat can secure a higher GPA with less effort. That effort can be redirected towards looking for internships and improving grad school applications. So I fail to see how cheaters are only “hurting themselves”. Morality aside, if you pursue a cheating strategy your pay-off will be much higher when we consider the scarcity of resources available to students.
- ghaff 6y ago
  That's why I wrote "mostly." Some reasonable measures to deter casual cheating may well be worthwhile. At some point though you draw a line where you start hurting honest students more than cheaters. You're not going to prevent it 100% absent draconian measures.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  > Students who cheat can secure a higher GPA with less effort. That effort can be redirected towards looking for internships and improving grad school applications. This is definitely not the reason why most people cheat. > Morality aside, if you pursue a cheating strategy your pay-off will be much higher As with any kind of lie, you will have to cheat more and more to compensate for previous cheating, and eventually your little web of lies will come back and bite you in the ass.
  - ativzzz 6y ago
    The first part certainly is why they cheat; higher grades allow easier admissions to jobs and better schools. > As with any kind of lie, you will have to cheat more and more to compensate for previous cheating, and eventually your little web of lies will come back and bite you in the ass. Completely disagree. People cheat to climb the ladder of life without having to put in the work or having the resources required to do bypass that ladder. However, once you climb the ladder high enough, it is much harder to fall back down. Sure you're not going to be a good doctor if you cheat your way through med school but if you cheat your way through undergrad and get into a better program with better resources, more driven peers and better professors, you are better off regardless.
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      At least the cheaters I know cheat because a) they’re unable to pass without cheating and/or b) they’re avoiding putting in effort. The jobs are part of the goal, but that’s true for basically everyone that attenda college. I don’t know anyone who cheats and invests all the saved time into grinding Leetcode. > if you cheat your way through undergrad and get into a better program with better resources, more driven peers and better professors, you are better off regardless. Until you end up doing a surgery. You can’t cheat the real world. Your lack of knowledge will show eventually, and then it’ll limit your opportunities.
MattGaiser 6y ago
> recognize that some people will cheat but they're mostly hurting themselves. This assumes that what you learn in university is the useful part, not the grade or the allocation of time that could be used for hackathons, projects, clubs, or internships.

wolfgke 6y ago

Make exams that are harder to cheat. For example: - oral exams via video call - written exams where students are distributed over a larger area (e.g. the university rents a warehouse for the examination time) so that the COVID-19 spreading risk is nevertheless kept very small.

huhnmonster 6y ago
This has been done in my last exam phase and has worked well. They cranked the AC to 11, which made it quite an unpleasant envirommemt, but I would rather wear a jacket than take online exams
- OldHand2018 6y ago
  I can remember taking many exams in the athletic field house at my university back in the 1990s. It was pretty standard when you were in a large class. The desks were so far apart that the current "social distancing" standards would be met. I remember that many courses had multiple variations of the same exam given to students to further reduce cheating. I'm taking an online masters right now and have taken a few (pre-pandemic) proctored exams. The nearby university offers to proctor any exam for $10. They have a bunch of rooms with desks, and it's no big deal at all. This proctoring technology thing has gone too far and too fast. It was a knee-jerk reaction, and with a lot of complaints I bet that a lot of it gets dropped.

TrackerFF 6y ago

At least where I'm from (Norway), grade transcripts will show a class grade distribution/histogram in the background of your grade. That way the viewer / reader will be able to compare your results to your class. Obviously if 80% of your class got A, that A is not going to look as impressive. On the other hand, if you're the only student that got A, while the class distribution is monotonically increasing towards Failure, that's going to be a good thing for you.

RegnisGnaw 6y ago
When I went to college, our department gave two grades on the transcript: percentage mark and class ranking. The ranking is your ranking among all the sections of that class taught that semester.

hahamrfunnyguy 6y ago

Cheating is rampant in in-person learning as well. We shouldn't be treating online learning the same as in-person learning. I took distance learning classes back in the early 00's. Some courses required proctored exams, some had open book exams. For proctored exams, I would do them in the library, then the librarian would send the test back to the school. The open book exams weren't really any easier - you were expected to know the material and therefore the tests were more challenging. In my professional experience, GPA has little correlation with how well someone can do a job. GPA going up or down by 0.3 points really doesn't mean that much to me.

908B64B197 6y ago

At some point, when GPA is used exclusively to filter-out and rank students instead of as one of the many factors in an application, you get that metrics gamification.

t-writescode 6y ago

Let's roll this back and ask a different question: Are the students learning the material in a way that they can display mastery outside of an exam setting / on the job? If so, who cares if cheating numbers / grades have been inflating?