Cheating at Universities is more common than you think

[roger]

I remember grading an undergraduate course in grad school. I found several papers that were obviously exact copies of each other. I failed them. They complained to the professor. He asked why I failed them. I told him. He restored their grades to 75 or something (if you are going to cheat, at least copy somebody smart).

Talk about taking the wind out of your sails.

 

[malbui]

Last year I had two students turn in identical dissertations (well, identical except for names and places), which was impressive for people who'd done six-month internships in different companies and were supposed to be researching different topics. The depth and inventiveness of the denials led me to suggest that if a little less time had been spent on that and a little more time had been spent on actually doing some original work, they'd have had no trouble obtaining a passing grade.

 

[TragicMonkey]

One appalling thing is the lack of quality in the papers people actually buy in order to cheat with. I remember visiting a website years ago that was mentioned in an article about that sort of thing, and reading some sample excerpts of literature papers. The ones I read were of horrible quality--poor writing in the first place, and they managed to completely misunderstand the books they were supposed to be about. I guess that's the danger of a market for illicit goods: no quality control!

 

[Startz]

In many types of classes, especially economics classes, the whole point of going to college is to make connections, not to necessarily learn anything.

(as you can see, I have an axe to grind)

if you're comfortable doing so, want to tell us what university you're attending? I'm curious, since I teach economics.

 

[Kotatsu]

We hold a course that is more or less built for students cheating on them. It's species recognition, and the exam is simply that we put up 25 invertebrates and 25 vertebrates in a room and the students walk around -- all at the same time -- looking at them and trying to figure out what species they are. I would guess that the average student on such an exam has about one million opportunities to check what his/her class mates have written, and in the case of the vertebrates, the name of the animal is actually written underneath, and covered only by a slip of paper. The whole control is having us assistants sit at the front of the room, keeping our eyes open and occasionally walk up and down the room.

Strangely, we never find any obvious attempts to cheat. In general, if I recognise the name of the student, meaning that he/she has been active during the course, they will generally pass the exam, whereas those who don't pass are generally the ones who haven't shown up much in the field excursions, and they generally fail miserably. The only person I caught cheating last time was a guy who lifted a stuffed field mouse and looked underneath, but he still managed to get the wrong name for that mouse, as well as for about 75% of the other animals, so cheating didn't seem to do him any good.

[tangent]
I've been tested by my students as well once to see if I actually read through all their lab reports or just looked at them briefly. They were supposed to describe ungulate and bird feet and make brief comments of what adaptations they showed to their lifestyle and habitat, and one student wrote that the reindeer was a "mythical magical bird, which is almost inseparable from a deer, which eats only porridge, and produces a sound that is exported and put into clarinets, giving them their distinctive sound"(1).

Naturally, I wouldn't stand for any such blatant disrespect of my superiority, and the student had to remake the assignment.
[/tangent]

---
(1) I may misremember some of the details, as I unfortunately didn't make a copy of the report.

 

[Chaos]

if you're comfortable doing so, want to tell us what university you're attending? I'm curious, since I teach economics.

Screw "comfortable". I study economics, I´ve never cheated, I´ve never noticed anyone else cheat, and my studies most certainly were about learning stuff first and foremost.

It may not be obvious to clueless political hacks, but there is a substance to economics, one which goes beyond the typical political lunacy.

So, UWdude, show us the difference between your statements and the moronic drivel of somebody who doesn´t know a thing of what he´s talking about.

 

[Dr. Keith]

My wife is wrapping up her grad school courses and all of her assignments have to be submitted to Turn It In. Apparently it is used widely in her school district as well. Has this not caught on in other university settings?

I actually switched majors because of the rampant cheating in my first choice. Well, it was one of the reasons. In my second major and later graduate studies it would have been harder to cheat than to just study.

Finally, a professor friend of mine has some very sad tales of plagiarizers who have been kicked out of her program. One even responded: but, I cited the paper I copied it from.

 

[Dr. Keith]

[tangent]
I've been tested by my students as well once to see if I actually read through all their lab reports or just looked at them briefly. They were supposed to describe ungulate and bird feet and make brief comments of what adaptations they showed to their lifestyle and habitat, and one student wrote that the reindeer was a "mythical magical bird, which is almost inseparable from a deer, which eats only porridge, and produces a sound that is exported and put into clarinets, giving them their distinctive sound"(1).

Naturally, I wouldn't stand for any such blatant disrespect of my superiority, and the student had to remake the assignment.
[/tangent]

---
(1) I may misremember some of the details, as I unfortunately didn't make a copy of the report.

If they had also answered the question I would have been impressed with the creative writing, even though it was the wrong venue.

I had a rather long end note involving some of the statistical errors I found in my research for a poli-sci paper I was writing. The Prof put a big smiley face with an "E for effort" or something similar. I still got an A, but it wasn't based on my tangential efforts.

 

[UWdude]

So, UWdude, show us the difference between your statements and the moronic drivel of somebody who doesn´t know a thing of what he´s talking about.

well, you can watch the link for starters.

 

[Elaedith]

My wife is wrapping up her grad school courses and all of her assignments have to be submitted to Turn It In. Apparently it is used widely in her school district as well. Has this not caught on in other university settings?

I actually switched majors because of the rampant cheating in my first choice. Well, it was one of the reasons. In my second major and later graduate studies it would have been harder to cheat than to just study.

Finally, a professor friend of mine has some very sad tales of plagiarizers who have been kicked out of her program. One even responded: but, I cited the paper I copied it from.

Most universities in the UK use Turnitin now.

 

[pgwenthold]

When you have calculations in a problem set, one of the sure-fire signs that students have copied is when they transcribe calculator errors. It's really funny to see two students set up the problem the exact same way, and they BOTH just happen to make the same mistake punching it into their calculator.

 

[Madalch]

When I was a wee lad, just starting graduate studies, we were required to act as teaching assistants to supervise undergraduate labs. The final lab for the organic course was that each student was given a sample of an unknown compound, and they had to identify it by its IR spectrum, chemical and physical properties, etc.

A friend of mine caught two students (who had different unknowns) handing in virtually identical lab reports (one student had thrown out the IR spectrum he was given, stolen his friend's, and gave his friend a photocopy of the original). So he failed them. The overlord lab supervisor forced my friend to regrade them and give them a decent mark (I think the reasoning was, "We already punished them for cheating the last time they were caught- we can't keep harassing the poor students"). I personally would have told the lab supervisor to self-urinate, but my friend did as he was told.

Next year, I had one of these students in my lab, and he tried the same stunt.

 

[Startz]

In many types of classes, especially economics classes, the whole point of going to college is to make connections, not to necessarily learn anything.

(as you can see, I have an axe to grind)

if you're comfortable doing so, want to tell us what university you're attending? I'm curious, since I teach economics.

To go a little further, I teach economics at a university that is often referred to as "UW." I doubt it's the place that UWDude is referring to, but that's why I'm curious.

 

[Jeff Corey]

I use tunitin.com, too. The first time I used it, I failed a students in Critical Thinking for copying all of her paper.
We also tell the students that the use of any electronic device during tests, without specific permission from the instructor, is cheating.
I've failed some students for violating that, too.

 

[WingerII]

I recall that there was quite a bit of cheating going on during the first year of my undergrad engineering program, even during midterms and final exams (perhaps facilitated by the fact that many of them were multiple-choice, even physics and chemistry).

None of the habitual cheaters I know of made it past third year. If you can't pass first year engineering without cheating, you simply won't be able to hack it in the upper years. I can see how this could be different for other disciplines.

To go a little further, I teach economics at a university that is often referred to as "UW." I doubt it's the place that UWDude is referring to, but that's why I'm curious.

My alma mater also goes by "UW". Based on your location, though, probably not the same one.

My wife is wrapping up her grad school courses and all of her assignments have to be submitted to Turn It In. Apparently it is used widely in her school district as well. Has this not caught on in other university settings?

Many universities here in Canada use Turnitin, as well. We would have to consent to its use at the beginning of a term (I don't remember whether it was on a department basis or course-by-course), but you couldn't pass if you didn't, so it wasn't much of a choice. Many of us has problems with this, which the Wikipedia article covers pretty well in the Controversy section.

A number of my friends are teaching assistants now, and they find Turnitin to be mostly a waste of time (flags common turns of phrase, etc.). Though I suspect plagiarism is less likely to occur in engineering lab reports than, say, essays on ancient Roman history.

 

[Chaos]

We also tell the students that the use of any electronic device during tests, without specific permission from the instructor, is cheating.
I've failed some students for violating that, too.

Same at my university. No electronic devices, unless the professor allows a calculator to be used (and even then there are some functions the calculator cannot have). If your cell phone rings during the exam, no matter for what reason, that´s an automatic failing grade for attempted cheating.

 

[Alan]

Water bottles can't have labels. And I think that mobile phones had to not only be off but also on the table.

 

[Jeff Corey]

...Many universities here in Canada use Turnitin, as well. We would have to consent to its use at the beginning of a term (I don't remember whether it was on a department basis or course-by-course), but you couldn't pass if you didn't, so it wasn't much of a choice. Many of us has problems with this, which the Wikipedia article covers pretty well in the Controversy section.

A number of my friends are teaching assistants now, and they find Turnitin to be mostly a waste of time (flags common turns of phrase, etc.). Though I suspect plagiarism is less likely to occur in engineering lab reports than, say, essays on ancient Roman history.

Why do you - I assume you mean students - have to consent? It's a legitimate tool for providing feedback to students. I ask them for a CD of the first draft of their paper, and then point out the dodgy parts. And no way does it flag common turns of phrases. It nails plagiarism. I've even run some of my submissions to make sure I wasn't falling prey to the "My Sweet Lord" effect.

 

[Madalch]

At some places that I've taught, students writing exams have been forbidden from wearing hats.

 

[Jeff Corey]

At some places that I've taught, students writing exams have been forbidden from wearing hats.

As well they should. Or if they are baseball hats, turn them backwards.