4 ms·

I'm sure same thing happens (or at least happened) in every other course. I'll go as far as to say that any assignment performed not in controlled environment w

I'm sure same thing happens (or at least happened) in every other course. I'll go as far as to say that any assignment performed not in controlled environment will mean that student work all available sources, including other students. One solution is make HW an evidence of effort, not knowledge. That's what happens in many courses in my uni: HW are some 10-30% of final grade and average is very high. Students share their solutions with each other and we are ok with it (well TAs are definitely aware) as soon as it is not copy-paste. It is so common that it is called "reference" solution. Then there are courses that are hard to evaluate during the exam (e.g., programming ones). It seems that my uni solution is to give assignment so hard it will require understanding even when cheating (unless someone solves it for you of course). There are assignments taking north of 40 hours for top students (from scratch). My point is that cheating is of course bad. But trying to catch cheaters beyond very obvious ones is just waste of time. Just design your course as cheat-proof as possible: ideally, the student who didn't learn won't pass given all possible external resources at home.

starky 4y ago
I had a prof during university that had a really good method to get people to engage. You would be assigned a reading, and then complete the quiz as an individual for a small portion of your grade, and then do the exact quiz again in a team of about 5-6 people worth a much greater amount of your grade. Lectures would then have particular focus on topics that students had trouble with on the quiz. Assignments were designed to require iteration until you met the specifications of the problem. If you got the same or similar answer as anyone else, then it was almost certainly cheated. Exams were open book, but quite difficult and long. You pretty much had to make sure you knew where to find all the information required in the course materials and were often similarly open ended as the assignments in the course were. >It seems that my uni solution is to give assignment so hard it will require understanding even when cheating (unless someone solves it for you of course). There are assignments taking north of 40 hours for top students (from scratch). Using this as a method to reduce cheating disturbs me. The goal shouldn't be that students have to make their homework a full time job, imagine is someone was taking 7 courses all with assignments like that.
- EvgeniyZh 4y ago
  > Using this as a method to reduce cheating disturbs me. The goal shouldn't be that students have to make their homework a full time job, imagine is someone was taking 7 courses all with assignments like that. To be fair it's the largest assignment of the semester for that course (compilation theory). The assignment structure per course is more or less fixed, so people know what awaits them in the semester and try not to take courses with large overlapping assignments. Then again, I think almost nobody does it from scratch (and it still takes people tons of time), but rather use "references". And you know, studying is kinda your fulltime job when you're a student.

starky 4y ago

I had a prof during university that had a really good method to get people to engage. You would be assigned a reading, and then complete the quiz as an individual for a small portion of your grade, and then do the exact quiz again in a team of about 5-6 people worth a much greater amount of your grade. Lectures would then have particular focus on topics that students had trouble with on the quiz. Assignments were designed to require iteration until you met the specifications of the problem. If you got the same or similar answer as anyone else, then it was almost certainly cheated. Exams were open book, but quite difficult and long. You pretty much had to make sure you knew where to find all the information required in the course materials and were often similarly open ended as the assignments in the course were. >It seems that my uni solution is to give assignment so hard it will require understanding even when cheating (unless someone solves it for you of course). There are assignments taking north of 40 hours for top students (from scratch). Using this as a method to reduce cheating disturbs me. The goal shouldn't be that students have to make their homework a full time job, imagine is someone was taking 7 courses all with assignments like that.

EvgeniyZh 4y ago
> Using this as a method to reduce cheating disturbs me. The goal shouldn't be that students have to make their homework a full time job, imagine is someone was taking 7 courses all with assignments like that. To be fair it's the largest assignment of the semester for that course (compilation theory). The assignment structure per course is more or less fixed, so people know what awaits them in the semester and try not to take courses with large overlapping assignments. Then again, I think almost nobody does it from scratch (and it still takes people tons of time), but rather use "references". And you know, studying is kinda your fulltime job when you're a student.