Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!decvax!mandrill!gatech!rutgers!ucsd!ames!amdahl!pyramid!prls!philabs!sbcs!paco
From: paco@sbcs.sunysb.edu (Francisco J Romero)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: looking for cheating detectors
Summary: what??
Message-ID: <1412@sbcs.sunysb.edu>
Date: 23 Jul 88 15:37:57 GMT
References: <1403@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <2920@utastro.UUCP>
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Lines: 56

In article <2920@utastro.UUCP>, nather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather) writes:
> [my original posting deleted]
> 
> What on earth are you teaching?  A class on re-inventing the wheel?  Perhaps
> your students would benefit from a course on how to "cheat" 
> and use code someone else has written and debugged.  That's what ALL
> professional programmers do if they can manage it.  The proof of a program
> is running it, and if they stole the program in its entirety, and it meets
> the program requirements entirely, then more power to them!  They'll have
> no trouble finding a job.
> 
> -- 
> Ed Nather
> Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
> {backbones}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather
> nather@astro.as.utexas.edu

[I don't see a smiley face anywhere, so I assume you're serious. Here we go] 
Now wait a minute.  There is a difference between reusability of software by
professional developers and unauthorized copying or sharing of student programs.
I don't believe that cheating is beneficial just because the final product 
meets the program requirements: it is unethical to use somebody else's code
without her permission.  In our course it is not permitted to share code.  Why? 
Because students should learn how to solve problems themselves before they can 
appreciate the need for teamwork. 

The course I am teaching this summer is an introduction to machine organization
and systems programming.  Students are required to write a small interpreter for
Tanembaum's Mac-1 machine (see "Structured Computer Organization")  And since
you mentioned using somebody else's code,  I should say that students are 
provided with symbol table routines and a simple parser.   This code is made
public and all students are encouraged to use it.  Now, if they want to 
learn the organization of an assembler they'd better write the rest by
themselves.  That's the whole point: LEARNING.  My course is not a software
house whose ultimate goal is selling programs.   Learning is what we are all
about, and ethics is part of it: if you are told to use your own ingenuity
to solve a problem and you use somebody else's without permission, should
you get an A on the assignment? You tell me.

Finally, I'd like to point out that computers make it very easy for students
(and others) to cheat.  It's just too tempting to walk all over the file 
system just for fun.  After all, files are not protected, right?   You just
have to look around you and see the frequency with which computer-related 
fraud occurs.  If we don't teach our freshmen to respect their fellow
students' intellectual property, how are they going to learn? 

Thanks to those of you who provided useful ideas.
Paco


............................................................................
Francisco J. Romero  (paco)                  | csnet:   paco@sbcs.csnet
Department of Computer Science               | arpa :   paco@sbcs.sunysb.edu
State University of New York at Stony Brook  | bitnet:  romero@sbccvm.bitnet
Stony Brook, NY 11794  (USA)                 | phone:   (516)689-6953
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