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I will be honest (full disclosure: I work in an academic institution). This obsessions with plaigarism is utter crap. I know this is an opinion, but I have bu

by 616c 12y ago

I will be honest (full disclosure: I work in an academic institution). This obsessions with plaigarism is utter crap. I know this is an opinion, but I have built a philosophy through years of failing at tasks. If you do not do your work, who cares? Time and time again, I see kids that cheat and they never tread water. Even if they graduate, they have problems. Because the final product is irrelevant in the education process, it is the developmental process you are paying for. The real world is dissimilar of course, but without skills and reasoning skills it is harder and harder beat competitors when making a superior product, whatever it is. Therein lies the rub. I was a language major, intentionally or not, because I wanted to study in speciliazations where there is a binary choice: you know or you do not, you are fluent or you are not. Now there are tests that "prove" that, but only by application and communicating in a native way you can advance and miscommunication with a native speaker reminds you which side of the spectrum you are on. It took me longer to appreciate it, but computer science, as an extension of the language of mathematics, is something you apply and grasp, or you do not. You cannot fool a computer into a sorting algorithm without grasping and explaining the requisite steps (unless you end in system administration and the continued absence of 4th generation languages, haha). No academic institution will espouse this view, as credentials cost money, and cheating devalues the brand when moronic indivdiuals with said credentials showed they have no skills in applying skills or analyzing info. Just my thoughts. Seen it so many times as a student and an employee, I lost count.

EGreg 12y ago
You said it yourself. Academic institutions need to maintain their integrity and high standards. If the students all cheat and then later aren't able to write papers, who gets blamed? If a kid grows up to be a criminal, are the parents blamed? I think, however, that threatening expulsion is extreme, like a parent vowing to throw their kid out of the house forever if they steal a candy bar.
iak8god 12y ago
> Time and time again, I see kids that cheat and they never tread water. Even if they graduate, they have problems. Graduating these students is bad for them and bad for the institution. I've always wished that more students could be made to see that the goal of assignments is not to produce something (a paper, code, proofs) but rather to get the experience working through producing the thing. All too often they seem to think of the situation as like a job where the instructor (boss) tells the student (worker) to do something and then they do it because that's what the instructor wants. With that mindset, it's easy to see why they think they're getting away with something when they plagiarize, when in fact they're mostly cheating themselves. What universities should be doing is communicating more clearly to students about the nature of the activity that they're paying four years of their lives and tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to participate in. Another point: especially in courses where the grades are magically adjusted to fit some curve, allowing cheating is extremely unfair to honest students. Even if there's no official curving going on, it's hard for the instructor to accurately gauge what students in the course should be capable of when a bunch of them are cheating. I've seen the effects of this firsthand as a student: one result is inflation in the difficulty of assignments. Finally, even when neither of those two concerns apply, it can be demoralizing for students who work hard and have a fair grasp of the material to get Cs or Bs when their know-nothing classmates seem to be breezing through, snapping up As.

by 616c 12y ago

EGreg 12y ago

You said it yourself. Academic institutions need to maintain their integrity and high standards. If the students all cheat and then later aren't able to write papers, who gets blamed? If a kid grows up to be a criminal, are the parents blamed? I think, however, that threatening expulsion is extreme, like a parent vowing to throw their kid out of the house forever if they steal a candy bar.

iak8god 12y ago

> Time and time again, I see kids that cheat and they never tread water. Even if they graduate, they have problems. Graduating these students is bad for them and bad for the institution. I've always wished that more students could be made to see that the goal of assignments is not to produce something (a paper, code, proofs) but rather to get the experience working through producing the thing. All too often they seem to think of the situation as like a job where the instructor (boss) tells the student (worker) to do something and then they do it because that's what the instructor wants. With that mindset, it's easy to see why they think they're getting away with something when they plagiarize, when in fact they're mostly cheating themselves. What universities should be doing is communicating more clearly to students about the nature of the activity that they're paying four years of their lives and tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to participate in. Another point: especially in courses where the grades are magically adjusted to fit some curve, allowing cheating is extremely unfair to honest students. Even if there's no official curving going on, it's hard for the instructor to accurately gauge what students in the course should be capable of when a bunch of them are cheating. I've seen the effects of this firsthand as a student: one result is inflation in the difficulty of assignments. Finally, even when neither of those two concerns apply, it can be demoralizing for students who work hard and have a fair grasp of the material to get Cs or Bs when their know-nothing classmates seem to be breezing through, snapping up As.