Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!ccplumb From: ccplumb@watnot.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Cheating on Programming Assignments Message-ID: <12879@watnot.UUCP> Date: Tue, 14-Apr-87 17:27:24 EST Article-I.D.: watnot.12879 Posted: Tue Apr 14 17:27:24 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 15-Apr-87 02:37:54 EST References: <248@rruxa.UUCP> <274@sdacs.ucsd.EDU> Reply-To: watmath!watnot!ccplumb (Colin Plumb) Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 69 Confusion: U. of Waterloo, Ontario bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) says (in <6487@bu-cs.BU.EDU>): >> 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%. I agree. >> >> mark > >Wrong. Cheating is cheating. It's like asking if it's ok to be just a >little bit pregnant. This claim is some of the worst nonsense ever posted to the net. I know that's going some. Cheating is *not* black-and-white. (It's not really relavent, but there *is* such a thing as being just a little bit pregnant. Quite frequently, a fertilized egg gets started, but is reabsorbed by the body before it's noticed.) >I would take full action against a student who "only got 1/2" the >program from someone else. Unpardonable. > >The only rule of thumb is "did the plagarized work improve the >student's grade?" If the answer is yes, it is cheating and should be >punished (of course if the bozo copied the wrong solution, as often >happens because bozos tend to come in bunches, it's still cheating.) What if the plagarized work improved the student's grade *in a different course*, because he/she could have written it, but had a mid-term on the due date and didn't want to put in the time to do something they could otherwise have done themselves, perhaps better? What is plagarism? Is borrowing something from a piece of PD software plagarism? If the student did just a miniscule amount of reformatting (say, changing the comments and a few variable names `for clarity'), they could claim it as theirs under copyright law. I wonder how much of a leg you'd have to stand on. Is borrowing from an assignment done last term plagarism? Is it, if the author consents? Is it, if the author consents by having it put in a book of course notes put together by a student society? What if I decide to try and write my own book of course notes, and get a bunch of students taking the course to try the stuff I've produced (including sample solutions) and tell me how helpful it is? Unless you expect students to rely *completely* on your lectures and the textbook/course materials, you'll have to decide how much help is considered fair to receive. Reminding another when the assignmet is due is, I think, considered fair by even the most vindicative of markers. Also, it's quite possible to get huge amounts of help (including having most of the assignment done for you) by just getting it from a student who isn't taking the course in question. The only way to detect this is to notice that the student doesn't understand the program `they did' too well. Anything short of this blatant is undetectable. So you're going to exact terrible tolls from people who get less help from within the class? Stupid, stupid, stupid. -- -Colin Plumb (watmath!watnot!ccplumb) Silly quote: It is better to have tried and failed than never to have failed at all.