Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!seismo!uwvax!uwmacc!edwards From: edwards@uwmacc.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: Cheating on Programming Assignments Message-ID: <1368@uwmacc.UUCP> Date: Mon, 13-Apr-87 09:30:20 EST Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1368 Posted: Mon Apr 13 09:30:20 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 15-Apr-87 02:17:40 EST References: <248@rruxa.UUCP> <274@sdacs.ucsd.EDU> <211@axis.fr> <645@ihu1e.ATT.COM> <3891@utai.UUCP> Reply-To: edwards@unix.macc.wisc.edu.UUCP (mark edwards) Organization: UW-Madison Academic Computer Center Lines: 68 Keywords: Sometimes its a matter of time In article <3891@utai.UUCP> gh@ai.UUCP (Graeme Hirst) writes: >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. I kind of disagree. The past discusion has only included those people who have cheated 100% . What about those people who cheated between 1 - 100% or are these students not in the same category. Here at Madison we have Graduate students and undergraduate students sometime taking the very same classes. The graduates must get an A or B, the graduate full load is 9 credits while the undergraduate is 12 credits. So now what if we have a graduate and an undergraduate taking the same classes, but since both are taking the full load the undergraduate is taking one more class then the graduate. The undergraduate is therefore at a disadvantage. This probably is not cheating but ..... What about those who are only taking one or two classes ... Another variation that graduates and undergraduates used was to drop the course before the 12th week if they were not doing as well as they wanted to. They could then take the course again, having some of the programs already written!! What if a student copies one of the difficult routines and then writes the rest of the program? What if a student sees the algorithm that another student used to accomplish his program with? What if a student gets help from other students to complete the program? What about students who purposely take a certain instructor because they know him to be easy? What about students that transfer, or enter graduate school and take classes that they have really already had, but the credits did not transfer ? Say the program is a project of three programming tasks, what if the student has access to a completed project, thus he can analyze all three and insure that his first program is upwardly compatible. When I was trying to get my BS, the biggest hinderance was time. I had no problem doing all the projects. The only problem was that some of the projects took a lot of time, which I didn't have. Now a days with cheap pc's, students should not have to worry about trying to run on a 780 with a load average fluctuating between 20 and 40. I was extremely envious of those who had "friends" who had already taken the class with a specific instuctor. I also was envious of students in other majors that didn't require them to stay up late, or get up early (4:00AM) just to get computer resources that were usable. I think there are many different aspects to cheating, of which only one, the 100% cheater, is being addressed. What do other people think ? If you get half the program from some one else is it cheating? Where do you draw the line ? How can you draw the line? I do not think that cheating is so clear cut as the cheated or not, the only problem is that the person who gets caught is the one who did it 100%. mark -- edwards@unix.macc.wisc.edu {allegra, ihnp4, seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!edwards UW-Madison, 1210 West Dayton St., Madison WI 53706