University cheating: ever done it?

[Agathon]

I had a bad day today. I've been teaching a course this semester and a while back I caught one of the students copying from the internet in their essay. It's not hard to spot: basically when something makes sense it's 90% probable it's been nicked.

Given the varsity's tough new line on plagiarism I had to report it (My co-instructor has since discovered another two internet cheats).

Anyway, today I had to attend an official meeting to decide what to do. It's kind of a bind since I think the student should be punished, but it's going to turn out to be a more severe punishment than I wanted (due to rules beyond my control - I'll spare you the details) and the student is quite upset with the whole thing. I'm basically a kindly sort of bloke - I don't like dealing with life wrecking stuff.

Cheating has become an ever increasing plague since I started teaching seven years ago. Does it have something to do with this ridiculous grade point average thing? We don't have that in NZ and there is a lot less cheating there.

Anyone here been a cheat?

I sometimes wonder if some students feel that they will be left behind if they don't cheat. The tragedy is I don't think it helps students at all, since they could probably make a better job of it themselves, than cribbing some moronic rubbish off the internet.

[Asher]

It's hard to cheat in my courses.

[Jon Miller]

nope

but a lot of my students have

Jon Miller

[Zopperoni]

Re: University cheating: ever done it?

Originally posted by Agathon
basically when something makes sense it's 90% probable it's been nicked.

Dang, you must teach some useless crap.

[Agathon]

Re: Re: University cheating: ever done it?

Originally posted by Zopperoni

Dang, you must teach some useless crap.

It's more to do with the fact that it's punctuated properly and uses grammatically correct English than it is to do with the content.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
nope

but a lot of my students have

Jon Miller

What are you teaching? It's pretty easy to catch cheats in my business thanks to Google.

[Inverse Icarus]

i've sold some of my project code (CompSci) to people for money before, and done HW for people (essays, CompSci) for money, does that count?

as for cheating (ie, getting information i didnt have) not really.

[Jon Miller]

pretty easy for me to (I teach Physics)

but the profs (nor I) don't really want to deal with it, so ignore it unless it is flagrant (like copying an entire test)

I almost went forward with it this last time (some student just kept talking in a test after I asked them to stop)

Jon Miller

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Uber KruX
i've sold some of my project code (CompSci) to people for money before, and done HW for people (essays, CompSci) for money, does that count?

as for cheating (ie, getting information i didnt have) not really.

That's only cheating if the university prohibits selling your own work. The people who present that as their own work are definitely cheating.

There is nothing wrong with buying material as long as you reference it properly.

[TCO]

University students should not cheat. Uni students are too wimpy in ethics and general outlook on life. We are raising a nation of wimps. Cheaters should be expelled. I am not kidding.

[Cyclotron]

Yeah, I've got the hardline on cheaters along with TCO. I'm in college now, and I would never consider cheating on anything, and I support the full boot-in-the-ass for cheaters.

[Sava]

Originally posted by TCO
University students should not cheat. Uni students are too wimpy in ethics and general outlook on life. We are raising a nation of wimps. Cheaters should be expelled. I am not kidding.

What do you expect when we make cheaters president?

[Agathon]

You know, I agree with you guys. We don't make the penalties stiff enough to deter cheaters. Thus, people like me have to be mean to people.

When I started university the penalty for intentional plagiarism was expulsion and being blacklisted by every university in the country. I can't think why the penalties have been reduced, unless it's the increased fees and competition amongst schools.

[Agathon]

@ Sava.

Hell of a sig you have there. I have a soft spot for TJ. There's a man who knew how to treat African Americans.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Sava
What do you expect when we make cheaters president?

Grow up. The "my big brother got away with it, so should I" is symptomatic of the lack of maturity. Honor is personal. Do the right thing, Sava. It doesn't matter about Bush or Clinton or any of that crap.