5 ms·

I was taking an upper level marine biology course - the tests were VERY difficult, but they were take-home, do them at your leisure. I was cool with it. But wal

I was taking an upper level marine biology course - the tests were VERY difficult, but they were take-home, do them at your leisure. I was cool with it. But walked into a coffee shop one day and found 75% of the class sharing answers and cheating anyway.

silversmith 4y ago
It seems very funny to me as a programmer, that what university calls "cheating" and threatens consequences, the industry calls "consulting with your colleagues" and encourages.
- texaslonghorn5 4y ago
  In theory the purpose of the university is to help you develop skills independently, so that you can bring something to the table when you do consult with colleagues in the workplace.
  - chii 4y ago
    > develop skills independently ... bring something to the table this assumes that those skills are somehow unique and others cannot learn it.
    - didibus 4y ago
      That's basically the point of university isn't it? It assumes that not everyone can be qualified to do everything and imposes restrictions on who can be hired based on their known qualifications.
- derac 4y ago
  Perhaps because these aren't equivalent environments. In school you are expected to learn, not copy answers...
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  Or IP theft, depending upon the exact scenario. Off to prison you go.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  I'd rather say that the equivalent of what the industry calls "consulting with your colleagues" is more a "study session" than an exam (be it take-home). This is when you learn things, and everyone brings something to the table. I'd say the equivalent of an exam is a job interview. When the other party wants to see what the individual knows.
- cowmoo728 4y ago
  There is an enormous difference between the people "consulting with colleagues" and the people openly cheating. When I was doing my engineering degree there were always groups of students who would go over assignments together, see if their answers matched up, and then look through the textbooks and course materials together to see which person was right. That's consulting. There were also people who would pay someone else to do the assignments, and then upload PDFs of completed assignments to a private chat. World of difference.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - MrJohz 4y ago
    Sure, but what the other person is describing as cheating sounds, to me at least, very much like the former case. There was a task, the students were allowed to work on the task in their own time, with their own resources, and chose to put their heads together rather than work on them individually. To me, that seems fairly reasonable. That said, a lot of this stuff seems kind of culturally specific. At least for the two degrees that I experienced in the UK, there were roughly three types of graded work: exams (overseen, sit in silence, possibly with your own notes but generally not, fixed time limit around 1-2hrs); lab-work (usually done in the building although worked on outside of lab hours as well, fixed deadline of around a week or two, usually graded at least in part based on an oral conversation with the examiner); and coursework (take-home work, fixed deadline ranging from one week to a couple of months, allowed to discuss but direct copying is banned). In these cases, it rarely makes sense to cheat by directly sharing answers. Obviously in an exam it would be useful, but the conditions of the exam make it largely prohibitively difficult. In coursework, it's usually obvious if people are handing copies of the same work in. And for lab work, the challenge was usually not to just complete the lab and get a "right" result, but rather to understand the task and be able to explain what was going on to the TA grading you. If you can cheat well enough to pass that, you probably understand what's going on - which is exactly the aim of the course anyway. Whereas it feels like what people are talking about here is students being sent home with problem worksheets, being expected not to talk about them at all, and then getting grades based on those answers. That seems to me to be a system that practically encourages cheating - work together as a group, and you'll obviously be able to achieve more than any one individual, even if you could all pass the course in the first place. In contrast, we also had similar worksheets, but they were never graded, and we were usually encouraged to work together to figure out what was going on. We could then take our answers to tutorials and have a discussion about where we went wrong and why we went wrong usually in a group of any four or five. So reading this article and some of the comments here, I'm really struggling to get an image of what these teachers are expecting from their students, if they're setting problems that are so obviously gameable.
- oefrha 4y ago
  Try consulting with your colleagues during your next interview and see if it’s encouraged.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Except if you consult with colleagues/friends outside of your company you would get fired. You are not allowed to "consult" with anyone, so why should you be allowed to consult with anyone about your homework.
  - ratww 4y ago
    > Except if you consult with colleagues/friends outside of your company you would get fired What the hell are you talking about? I routinely consult with others and others routinely consult with me. That's afaik standard practice in most professions: engineering, medicine, architecture, psychology, marketing, and yes software development.
    - cycomanic 4y ago
      You share confidential information with colleagues outside your job? I guess how much or what consulting you can do depends a lot on your job. I know quite a few companies which don't allow talking about specific problems you are facing because that would reveal information they consider confidential. Now if we are talking general questions, sure but you are very much allowed to do the same as a student. All this to show that sharing information/solutions has quite a gradient even in professional life.
      - ratww 4y ago
        Again: what the hell are you talking about? We were talking about professional consulting, not about sharing confidential information. These are two very different activities, and you can definitely do one without the other. The statement saying "if you consult with colleagues/friends outside of your company you would get fired" is false.
        cycomanic 4y ago
        We are replying to a post which said cheating in education is what is consultation in professional life. Nowhere did we talk about general "consultation" we comparing copying others solutions (cheating) to "consultation", I would argue that the equivalent of copying someone's specific solution in many (most) cases would be a violation of ethical/company/workplace rules and is not just "consultation". Asking someone for help with homework (much more equivalent to general consultation) is not generally considered cheating in education either.
- FabHK 4y ago
  Come on. In one case, you aim to prove that you have mastered an established body of knowledge. In the other case, you are trying to solve an open problem with any legitimate means available. Those are entirely different things, and conflating them is obtuse.
donthellbanme 4y ago
fnordpiglet 4y ago
I hope you told the professor what you discovered. Allowing cheating is complicity in the cheating without the benefits. But I remember the intense social pressure - glad I’m not a kid any more.

silversmith 4y ago

It seems very funny to me as a programmer, that what university calls "cheating" and threatens consequences, the industry calls "consulting with your colleagues" and encourages.

texaslonghorn5 4y ago
In theory the purpose of the university is to help you develop skills independently, so that you can bring something to the table when you do consult with colleagues in the workplace.
- chii 4y ago
  > develop skills independently ... bring something to the table this assumes that those skills are somehow unique and others cannot learn it.
  - didibus 4y ago
    That's basically the point of university isn't it? It assumes that not everyone can be qualified to do everything and imposes restrictions on who can be hired based on their known qualifications.
derac 4y ago
Perhaps because these aren't equivalent environments. In school you are expected to learn, not copy answers...
bcrosby95 4y ago
Or IP theft, depending upon the exact scenario. Off to prison you go.
vladvasiliu 4y ago
I'd rather say that the equivalent of what the industry calls "consulting with your colleagues" is more a "study session" than an exam (be it take-home). This is when you learn things, and everyone brings something to the table. I'd say the equivalent of an exam is a job interview. When the other party wants to see what the individual knows.
cowmoo728 4y ago
There is an enormous difference between the people "consulting with colleagues" and the people openly cheating. When I was doing my engineering degree there were always groups of students who would go over assignments together, see if their answers matched up, and then look through the textbooks and course materials together to see which person was right. That's consulting. There were also people who would pay someone else to do the assignments, and then upload PDFs of completed assignments to a private chat. World of difference.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- MrJohz 4y ago
  Sure, but what the other person is describing as cheating sounds, to me at least, very much like the former case. There was a task, the students were allowed to work on the task in their own time, with their own resources, and chose to put their heads together rather than work on them individually. To me, that seems fairly reasonable. That said, a lot of this stuff seems kind of culturally specific. At least for the two degrees that I experienced in the UK, there were roughly three types of graded work: exams (overseen, sit in silence, possibly with your own notes but generally not, fixed time limit around 1-2hrs); lab-work (usually done in the building although worked on outside of lab hours as well, fixed deadline of around a week or two, usually graded at least in part based on an oral conversation with the examiner); and coursework (take-home work, fixed deadline ranging from one week to a couple of months, allowed to discuss but direct copying is banned). In these cases, it rarely makes sense to cheat by directly sharing answers. Obviously in an exam it would be useful, but the conditions of the exam make it largely prohibitively difficult. In coursework, it's usually obvious if people are handing copies of the same work in. And for lab work, the challenge was usually not to just complete the lab and get a "right" result, but rather to understand the task and be able to explain what was going on to the TA grading you. If you can cheat well enough to pass that, you probably understand what's going on - which is exactly the aim of the course anyway. Whereas it feels like what people are talking about here is students being sent home with problem worksheets, being expected not to talk about them at all, and then getting grades based on those answers. That seems to me to be a system that practically encourages cheating - work together as a group, and you'll obviously be able to achieve more than any one individual, even if you could all pass the course in the first place. In contrast, we also had similar worksheets, but they were never graded, and we were usually encouraged to work together to figure out what was going on. We could then take our answers to tutorials and have a discussion about where we went wrong and why we went wrong usually in a group of any four or five. So reading this article and some of the comments here, I'm really struggling to get an image of what these teachers are expecting from their students, if they're setting problems that are so obviously gameable.
oefrha 4y ago
Try consulting with your colleagues during your next interview and see if it’s encouraged.
cycomanic 4y ago
Except if you consult with colleagues/friends outside of your company you would get fired. You are not allowed to "consult" with anyone, so why should you be allowed to consult with anyone about your homework.
- ratww 4y ago
  > Except if you consult with colleagues/friends outside of your company you would get fired What the hell are you talking about? I routinely consult with others and others routinely consult with me. That's afaik standard practice in most professions: engineering, medicine, architecture, psychology, marketing, and yes software development.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    You share confidential information with colleagues outside your job? I guess how much or what consulting you can do depends a lot on your job. I know quite a few companies which don't allow talking about specific problems you are facing because that would reveal information they consider confidential. Now if we are talking general questions, sure but you are very much allowed to do the same as a student. All this to show that sharing information/solutions has quite a gradient even in professional life.
    - ratww 4y ago
      Again: what the hell are you talking about? We were talking about professional consulting, not about sharing confidential information. These are two very different activities, and you can definitely do one without the other. The statement saying "if you consult with colleagues/friends outside of your company you would get fired" is false.
      - cycomanic 4y ago
        We are replying to a post which said cheating in education is what is consultation in professional life. Nowhere did we talk about general "consultation" we comparing copying others solutions (cheating) to "consultation", I would argue that the equivalent of copying someone's specific solution in many (most) cases would be a violation of ethical/company/workplace rules and is not just "consultation". Asking someone for help with homework (much more equivalent to general consultation) is not generally considered cheating in education either.
FabHK 4y ago
Come on. In one case, you aim to prove that you have mastered an established body of knowledge. In the other case, you are trying to solve an open problem with any legitimate means available. Those are entirely different things, and conflating them is obtuse.

donthellbanme 4y ago

fnordpiglet 4y ago

I hope you told the professor what you discovered. Allowing cheating is complicity in the cheating without the benefits. But I remember the intense social pressure - glad I’m not a kid any more.