Cheating at Universities is more common than you think

Rika said:
That would cause me to complain since the cell phone's private property. Although in college I usually kept it off and in my coat for similar reasons.

Sent from my Droid

ETA: d'oh, hit reply not quote. Responding to LLH
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Yeah, that is why he gives you the choice of a W. Of course I don't how well his policy would stand up if someone seriously challenged it, but for what it is worth, his collection of cell phones is impressive....
 
In college I cheated, but not for me, for others. I wrote short papers (3-5 pages) for $25 and edited and re-wrote for $10. Not a lot but I would say maybe 10 or 12 times in 3 years that I did it. Always for someone I knew, usually females. Hey I was trying to get laid, not that it worked. I never had to do the same paper twice. This was before computers were widespread, so I actually typed the papers on a typewriter.
 
Pinely said:
And then I had the Art History professor that accidentally left some of the names on the art slides we were supposed to identify. When a TA attempted to point this out, the professor didn't seem to understand the problem, until the TA literally had him look at the screen and the test at the same time. He was a good sport about it though, he laughed for a solid minute.
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This reminds me of a mistake I made in a test once. It was a programming exam which had an HTML (i.e. webpage) section. I intended to upload an uncompleted copy of one of the webpages unto the local network so they could download it and complete it. In other words just adding the logic to the static page. Instead I uploaded the completed memorandum for that question!

So for that test all the students got a free 15% or so :)
 
Pinely said:
And then I had the Art History professor that accidentally left some of the names on the art slides we were supposed to identify.
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I would be a cruel art history teacher indeed, because I'd put the wrong names on the slides and see who fell for it.
 
Madalch said:
I quite frequently get papers that have obviously been written by the same person (even though they've got the names of two different students on them). They get zeroes, and letters are written to the dean.
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Any chance of coming and teaching here?

In my course it is getting out of control, to the point where someone was caught cheating today ( rather large quiz, he was looking at other's papers and writing down answers he missed.) and the teacher did nothing more than say " What is this?" ( to be fair, there is a possibility he is getting 0 on the quiz, but it states clearly in our course outline cheating=getting kicked out.)

While a good portion of teachers may be like you, i find that cheating is on the surface frowned upon extremely , but in practise accepted to a point.

Which bugs the crap out of me. If i don't know the material, i am willing to get a 60 or a 70 on something. Why should the rules be different for others?

On a related note, any advice on how to help this? Petitions have been passed around ( it is a specific group of students, who happen to be from a different country.) but the response was for the head of the course to call the person presenting it a trouble maker.
 
sadhatter said:
On a related note, any advice on how to help this? Petitions have been passed around ( it is a specific group of students, who happen to be from a different country.) but the response was for the head of the course to call the person presenting it a trouble maker.
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Look up the head of the course's doctoral dissertation and research it to see if anything was plagiarized from other people. People who are lax about cheating are usually cheaters themselves, and a plagiarized dissertation leads to revocation of the degree and complete destruction of the person's academic career.

Or you could just gather the evidence and blackmail them, but academics don't generally have a lot of money so it's probably not worth it.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Look up the head of the course's doctoral dissertation and research it to see if anything was plagiarized from other people. People who are lax about cheating are usually cheaters themselves, and a plagiarized dissertation leads to revocation of the degree and complete destruction of the person's academic career.

Or you could just gather the evidence and blackmail them, but academics don't generally have a lot of money so it's probably not worth it.
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You know, the irony is this prof ( not the one who laughed it off, but the head of the course.) is quite the disciplinarian, and goes on at length about the lack of discipline that the regulating body of pharmacy deals out. I honestly think that she would not have done things like this herself.

I honestly think there is ...something going on. But not being a teacher ( or, to be honest familiar with the processes involved in higher level education.) i have no idea what the up side would be for them to ignore cheating.
 
sadhatter said:
I honestly think there is ...something going on. But not being a teacher ( or, to be honest familiar with the processes involved in higher level education.) i have no idea what the up side would be for them to ignore cheating.
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Because schools are businesses now, and the students are customers. The school doesn't make money on students it kicks out.
 
Cainkane1 said:
I never cheated. I never even tried. I don't know how it is these days but when I was in college you were out of the University if you got caught.
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I highly doubt it. That was the perception of a good, hard working student. In fact, that is the perception of most good, hard working students today. They think getting caught cheating leads to expulsion. Nope. Never really did. (I mean, it depends a little bit on your connections, I am sure)
 
sadhatter said:
I honestly think there is ...something going on. But not being a teacher ( or, to be honest familiar with the processes involved in higher level education.) i have no idea what the up side would be for them to ignore cheating.
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If you punish a student for cheating, the student (no matter how guilty s/he knows they are) is likely to file a complaint. This will be handled by the university administration, and there will be a hearing similar to a trial. This is time-consuming for the instructor, and there is a significant chance that the administrators will sympathize with the student no matter how obvious the instructor thinks the plagiarism is. (If I see a student looking over another student's shoulder during the exam, that will convince me that he's cheating, but the Dean's not going to take my word for it.) An instructor who is juggling two or three courses, plus possibly research, isn't going to want to devote time to such hearings if the outcome isn't assured.

When I was a lab instructor and caught students plagiarizing lab reports, the usual punishment was that they would get a zero on that lab, and not be allowed to write the lab exam (which meant a significant hit on their lab grade, but also freed them from a stressful exam that all the other students devoted a great deal of time studying for). Any more serious punishment would have required an administrative hearing, and the prof didn't have time for that sort of thing. But he did sit down with the students, outline the evidence against them, and outline the possible punishments for them (such as expulsion) in order to put the fear of Gawd into them. The students would then be grateful to receive only a zero, and not contest it.

The student I mentioned who handed in his photocopy of the other guy's lab report- he initially was worried that getting a zero on this lab report might lower his overall grade to the point where his average might not get him into med school. I made sure he knew that academic suspensions and expulsion made his GPA the least of his worries.
 
Yes, I have cheated and plagiarized on several occasions without getting caught. I have also helped others cheat on several occasions. In one instance, it was for money. The person was working full time, was not interested in the material, was only taking the class for a liberal arts requirement and could not have done the work- or at least not very well. She offered me money since I was one of the best in the class. I wrote the papers for her but later tried to refuse to take the cash. She convinced me to take it in the end, though. I'm not proud of it but there it is.

I also know of at least one person- my best friend- who semi regularly buys papers from an online service. She's never been caught and is actually very blase about it. She fully expects to get away with it Scot-free. And she has, for years. She says that her sister also does it but at another place.

Our professors thunder about academic dishonesty at the start of every class. The syllabus always has two or three pages on it alone. The college makes it very, very clear that it is not tolerated and that the consequences are very bad. And yet almost every single one of my professors, past and present, claims that they typically get several cases of plagiarism every semester. A lot of them say "There's at least one every single class- and they always get caught." It's just unavoidable. Always happens. Kids just do it.

ETA: I also know of a case of a woman (a former friend of mine) paying her roommate (a good acquaintance of mine) 200 dollars or so to take an exam in Polish for her- and threw a yoga mat and some free yoga classes into the deal, too. :biggrin: It was one of those tests that exempt you from the college's language requirement. The cheater knew Polish fairly well because she was half-Polish- but was utterly clueless about the grammar and things like that- but the roommate was a recent immigrant from Poland. Of course, she passed with flying colors- and had the fairly good luck to not get caught, despite the fact that she looked nothing like her roommate (she showed the cheater's ID as her own and was waved in by an inattentive test administrator) and was wearing a cheap blonde wig on her head (if memory serves).

You would think most people would stop there. You'd think. You'd think that would be enough for most people. You'd think. You'd think they would count their lucky stars it worked out once and never try a stunt like that again. You'd be wrong. This woman then had the gall to call me and ask me if I knew anyone at my college who "Is really good and really smart at history or literature or psychology and has blonde hair and is tall like me so that they could take the test for me. Could you keep a lookout for someone like that for me?". :eye-poppi :covereyes

Yes, she wanted to exempt herself from more classes. Getting away once wasn't enough for her.

I rather coldly responded "I could ask around but I can't really think of anyone like that. I might ask them- but I'm not promising anything. Maybe."

Translation: "WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER!"

Does anyone want to guess what this woman was studying to be?

A child educator.
 
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Madalch said:
If you punish a student for cheating, the student (no matter how guilty s/he knows they are) is likely to file a complaint. This will be handled by the university administration, and there will be a hearing similar to a trial. This is time-consuming for the instructor, and there is a significant chance that the administrators will sympathize with the student no matter how obvious the instructor thinks the plagiarism is. (If I see a student looking over another student's shoulder during the exam, that will convince me that he's cheating, but the Dean's not going to take my word for it.) An instructor who is juggling two or three courses, plus possibly research, isn't going to want to devote time to such hearings if the outcome isn't assured...
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That is not my experience. In all the years I've been teaching at an university, I've given Fs on tests where cheating occurred (the most recent was this semester, when a student was using a blackberry during her first,and last, exam) and on papers that were plagiarized. Sometimes this resulted in a F in the course, and I never have had to go through any lengthy hearing process.
One time, a person I caught cheating on a final claimed that her fiance was a lawyer for the mob and would have the boys take care of me, and then was stupid enough to make the same statement to the Dean of Students, an ombudsperson (sic) at the time. I didn't lose any sleep over the threat.
 
UWdude said:
Cheaters win all the time, no matter what little fairy tales your momma told you when you were young. If cheating was not a good way to get ahead, then people would not do it.
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In my profession (software development), you can spot the cheaters pretty quickly. They provide awesome resumes with descriptions of stunning academic achievements. They've got great references. They know all the buzzwords. However, if you question them deeply enough about their understanding of basic principles, you can tell they are posers.

Even those who don't interview them carefully will find out soon after they hire them that they're all smoke and mirrors. Their only hope is to get a job with one of those companies where it's easier to stick them in a back room somewhere than to fill out the paperwork required to fire them.

You can fool people, but you can't fool computer systems. You have to actually know what you're doing to make them do useful work.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Because schools are businesses now, and the students are customers. The school doesn't make money on students it kicks out.
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If there are thousands of other would-be students on a waiting list, you may as well kick them out. You've already got their money for that semester, and another student is ready to take his place next semester.
 
I had a professor who allowed us to bring several pages of cheat notes to each test. The only rule was that it had to be written out by hand, not printed or photocopied.

Towards the end of the semester, she told us the dirty little secret: The act of writing down the cheat notes cemented the material on our memories, and we didn't really need to refer to the notes during the test.

I admired that approach. The goal wasn't so much to have us pass a test as it was to actually learn the material.
 
aggle-rithm said:
In my profession (software development), you can spot the cheaters pretty quickly. They provide awesome resumes with descriptions of stunning academic achievements. They've got great references. They know all the buzzwords. However, if you question them deeply enough about their understanding of basic principles, you can tell they are posers.

Even those who don't interview them carefully will find out soon after they hire them that they're all smoke and mirrors. Their only hope is to get a job with one of those companies where it's easier to stick them in a back room somewhere than to fill out the paperwork required to fire them.

You can fool people, but you can't fool computer systems. You have to actually know what you're doing to make them do useful work.
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there are fields you cannot cheat in, I agree (although you can still play a mean game of nasty office politics). But most non-technical fields, like law, history and economics, you can cheat your way all the way to the presidency.
 
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