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From: gh@utai.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Cheating on Programming Assignments
Message-ID: <3891@utai.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Apr-87 12:29:24 EST
Article-I.D.: utai.3891
Posted: Tue Apr  7 12:29:24 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Apr-87 03:45:25 EST
References: <248@rruxa.UUCP> <274@sdacs.ucsd.EDU> <211@axis.fr> <645@ihu1e.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: gh@ai.UUCP (Graeme Hirst)
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Lines: 42
Summary: Cheaters should not have nothing to lose.

I am amazed to read in this discussion that the usual penalty for cheating
seems to be a grade of 0, and nothing worse.  What that means is that students
have nothing to lose by cheating!  Cheaters are usually people who can't do
the assignment.  They are in a position where they will get zero if they don't
cheat, will also get zero if they cheat and are caught, and will get >0 if they
cheat and are lucky.  Cheating can only improve things.

Analogy:  Suppose the only penalty for theft was that if you were caught you 
had to return what you stole.  That would be no deterrent at all.  Unless the
default penalty puts the offender in a much worse position than they would be
if they stayed honest, it is useless.

In my classes, the usual penalty for cheating is -1 * (max marks possible
on assignment).  (Lighter penalties are sometimes called for.)  
The penalty for permitting someone to copy from you is the same.

In article <645@ihu1e.ATT.COM> colsmith@ihu1e.UUCP writes:
>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.

This is a clear violation of due process, and would not be permitted at
U of T.  (In fact, it may allow the students to get off on a technicality
if they appealed.)  We are required to "invite" both students in to "discuss
the situation", and that is how it should be.  We can then press formal
charges, if desired, if the students are unwilling to accept the penalty
assessed.

>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) 

If a student does this, there are two things going wrong:
  (1)  The student probably has a severe problem, and should have been
referred for counselling.
  (2)  Whether or not there were the mitigating circumstances of a personality
disorder, the student should have been suspended from the university after the
second offence until such time as he could his act together.  Keeping someone
like this around is doing nobody a favour, including the student.
-- 
\\\\   Graeme Hirst    University of Toronto	Computer Science Department
////   utcsri!utai!gh  /  gh@ai.toronto.edu  /	416-978-8747