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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!seismo!mcvax!inria!axis!philip
From: philip@axis.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Cheating on Programming Assignments
Message-ID: <211@axis.fr>
Date: Thu, 2-Apr-87 19:05:19 EST
Article-I.D.: axis.211
Posted: Thu Apr  2 19:05:19 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Apr-87 19:01:51 EST
References: <248@rruxa.UUCP> <274@sdacs.ucsd.EDU>
Organization: Axis Digital, Paris
Lines: 21
Summary: One trick which worked for me.


This doesn't really answer the original question, but one technique I have
used to convince students that copying each others work, or working
in groups to solve an assignment, is not worth the effort was simply
to do the following:

Where I spotted something which looed remarkably similar to something I
had already seen, I found the first one I saw (from person 'A'), and rather
than putting a mark on that of person 'B', I put a comment saying to
see the person 'A' to find out what your mark is. Finding further similar
items, I built up a chain, person 'C' asks person 'B' etc ...

Murphy's law usualy puts the original author quite far down on this linked
list, and he/she gets annoyed at having to follow the chain to find his/her
mark. It is also patently obvious to the students that you have recognised
what they are doing, and it soon stops.

This worked quite well with smallish classes. If you have 50 or more
assignments to mark it probably becomes more difficult to manage.

Philip