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From: colsmith@ihu1e.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Cheating on Programming Assignments
Message-ID: <645@ihu1e.ATT.COM>
Date: Fri, 3-Apr-87 18:28:37 EST
Article-I.D.: ihu1e.645
Posted: Fri Apr  3 18:28:37 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Apr-87 08:07:25 EST
References: <248@rruxa.UUCP> <274@sdacs.ucsd.EDU> <211@axis.fr>
Organization: Purple People Inc.
Lines: 20
Summary: if they cheat, give them a zero if they really wrote the program they'll let you know

When I was a TA the rules were simple.  If 2 people handed in the same
program, give them both a 0.  The one that really wrote it will make that
clear and you can give him or her points back if it seems appropriate.
Often students cheat together, but sometimes one just steals from an
unsuspecting other.

And after you catch someone turning in stolen programs, watch them
carefully!  One student finally wised up and stopped using programs from
other students in the same section.  When he handed in a beautiful program 
I was suspicious.  Our system administrator wrote a shell script to go
through all programs the other students in that class were writing and look
for unique procedure or variable names.  It was slow but we found where he
had stolen his program from!  All he had changed was the name.  Some nerve...

Marcia Colsmith

P.S. I flunked the student (he cheated about 6 different times, even 
repeatedly on the same assignment when I was a softy and gave him a chance 
to write programs over himself) and I married the system administrator, 
and we all lived happily ever after! :-)