Another College Cheater, Cheating Himself

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Hey guys, college cheater here chiming in. I’m not particularly proud of it, but I don’t particularly regret it either. Through Freshman year (and all of high school, for that matter), I cheated out of laziness. Full blown cheat sheets, stored info on calculators, looking off neighbor’s paper, etc. Actually to be honest, back then I was proud of it.

Anyway, after Freshman year of college when my courses became more relevant to my major, my cheating eased off. For the last couple of years I’ve only cheated on maybe a dozen papers, usually just in the form of lazy citations. It wasn’t out of laziness those times though, it was just me picking my battles. My core classes were all heavy duty production courses (making animations, games, etc.) that I was passionate about working on and me and my team members would do 10-12 hour stretches in the computer lab every day. “normal” classes we needed just for credits would cut into our production time, so we’d routinely short change those professors.

I’d have to say I understand the lazy cheater’s mentality pretty well. I’d like to say I’ve grown out of it, but I think I’ve just had to take less and less courses that I’m just totally uninterested in, so I haven’t had a reason to cheat. Also as someone mentioned, there becomes a point when cheating becomes as much as a pain as actually doing the assignment.

For the record I’ve never been caught cheating and I got my B.S. in June.

22

Corporate Hippie, here’s a thought. It sounds like you may be going into a field where you create intellectual property. How diligent will you be in defending your own intellectual property? Expect others to do the same. Maybe this will help you rethink the ethics and/or practicality of plagiarism.

23

One of the things that I’ve done in snagging cheaters involves careful inventory control of my tests, and subtle variations in the test cases. I know the order and period of each test taker, and when each test goes out. I also vary the cases very subtly from version to version, and embed hidden greek lettes in the versions them selves.

So if someone were to steal or otherwise transmit a copy to a person taking it later, and if the cribbed the stolen version, their solutions will be clearly off, in a documentable but subtle way. As for scoring such an illegitimate solution, 0 points, for not working the assigned problem.

24

[QUOTE=Monstre]
I finished the evening with a writeup of a very good implementation of Yahtzee. I’ve had several students do that game in past semesters, but this is the best Yahtzee submission I’ve seen to date. Very nice looking interface, easy to use, all rules implemented correctly. Done as both an application and applet, along with some nice extra features.

This one’s definitely an A+ submission. And given that the student only needed 54% on it for an A in the course (given his other grades), I’d say he’s in good shape.
[/QUOTE]
I’m curious if you tried Googling any of this student’s code.

25

[QUOTE=Harriet the Spry]
Corporate Hippie, here’s a thought. It sounds like you may be going into a field where you create intellectual property. How diligent will you be in defending your own intellectual property? Expect others to do the same. Maybe this will help you rethink the ethics and/or practicality of plagiarism.
[/QUOTE]

Oh, you’re absolutely right. I’ve got no delusions about the ethics of plagiarism; I know it’s wrong. There is a scale though, as far as the extent of the plagiarism, and more importantly how you put your “borrowed” material to use. Every time I’ve cheated it’s been on an assignment in a classroom setting. The professor sees the assignment and gives me a grade, which benefits me of course, but the plagiarised assignment never leaves the classroom. My profit off of the original author’s work amounts to an undeserved grade for me, typically on what I consider to be a trivial assignment. Still wrong? Of course, but I’m not hurting anyone but myself, so to speak. You can be sure that if I turned in a plagiarised paper and the professor gushed over it and requested permission to submit it to the Best Darn Student Paper competition, I’d fess up in a heartbeat.

In fact, I worked on an animation with a handful of guys my senior year that we ended up submitting to some student film festivals. After we’d sent out a few DVDs we discovered that the team member who acquired the music track for the animation got it from a “royalty free” site that wasn’t quite what he thought. Long story short, we recalled the DVD’s we’d sent out and paid the site the requisite liscensing fees for using their track in the few cases where it had been screened, and got the piece rescored. It might be hard to believe due to the flippant nature of my first post, but I’m actually extremely anal when it comes to IP rights in any case when whatever it is might see the light of day. Especially because I create my own IP that I want to keep control of.

Hmm, no matter how much I type to defend myself I can’t seem to shake a guilty feeling about all those papers in college. I mean I do think in my case all my cheating was relatively innocuous, but I still feel like a hypocrit trying to justify myself right now. I take it back, I regret cheating.

:smack:

26

[QUOTE=cerberus]
One of the things that I’ve done in snagging cheaters involves careful inventory control of my tests, and subtle variations in the test cases. I know the order and period of each test taker, and when each test goes out. I also vary the cases very subtly from version to version, and embed hidden greek lettes in the versions them selves.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I do that kind of thing with tests as well. Multiple versions of a test, and I’ll write a “serial number” in pen on the upper left hand corner of each copy. If the classroom is big enough, I’ll space everybody out so that they are sitting in columns, with at least one seat between any two people. And two people sitting side by side will have different copies of the test. Mostly the same content, but different enough that stealing glances and copying what they see will net them lots of wrong answers. Multiple choice answers won’t be the same on side-by-side tests.

But even more amusing have been the times a person has clearly copied a free response answer from his neighbor’s paper – it will often involve a function name, which is a different word on the different copies. For example, one test uses “Compute”, and the next has “Calculate”. I’ve seen a person write “Compute” in their answer when they have the test with the “Calculate” function name – and the kicker is that the name “Compute” appears nowhere on their test. So they have no viable explanation of where on Earth it came from. Well, save one.

The problem I had with the stolen test (which I linked earlier) incident was frustrating, because it took place in a circumstance that I was not allowed to control. Namely, this was a student registered with the Disability office, and when I get one of those letters at the start of a term:

  1. I’m required by university policy to accept whatever arrangements the Disability Office deems necessary.
  2. I can’t ask what the disability is (although the student is free to volunteer info if they wish).
  3. If the arrangement is for the student to take their tests AT the Disability office to allow more time, I have to allow them to arrange for this.

So what this means is that I have to hand over a test to THEM to administer – it’s not something that I can personally proctor. And this particular student (which I found out after all the proverbial fecal matter hit the proverbial fan) was using the Disability Center – or rather ABUSING it – to pull her little scams. Couple that with the fact that their procedures were extremely lax at the time, and it was not a good situation.

And in the stolen test case, what was brought before the Honor Court as evidence was:

  1. I numbered all the copies of the tests I made
  2. The ONLY copy of the test that was not in my possession was the one that was stolen from the classroom on the final exam day.
  3. The test I dropped off at the disability office for HER to take (several days later) was a totally different test – a makeup test.
  4. The test returned to me in the envelope by the Disability Office was a copy of the test I had given to the regular class. (Remember, the ONLY copy not in my personal possession was the stolen one).
  5. On the copy returned to me, I could see where the staple marks had been on the front page – two little black dots (not holes) – which didn’t line up exactly with the current staple. (Clearly a photocopy of the original with my pen-inked serial number whited out).

The Honor Court apparently chose to disregard all this – claiming they found her story credible because there was no direct link between her and the person who did the test stealing (some guy she got to pretend to be in the class and run out with a test).

Unfortunately, the reason he got out with a test in the first place was that I can’t guard every door, and while I had my TAs there with explicit instructions for proctoring, they still allowed themselves to be snowed by this guy, who claimed he’d handed in the test to me already (I told the TAs I would NOT accept ANY tests – they were to be handed in to the TA at the back door on the way out).

Even with the Honor Court not finding her guilty of the stolen test – my position was that I did not have a valid final exam for her, because she had not actually completed the one I dropped off at the Disability Center for her. The Dean refused to make her come take another test, so that we’d have a valid final.

I refused to sign my name to any grade change form with the presumed A on it (and so did my department chairs). I assume the Dean put the grade through.

Since then, the Disability center has made their procedures more specific and more well-defined. And they have cameras monitoring the test-taking room in their new facility. I assume that much of this was because of this particular incident.

27

I use the test codes also. That way I know if any tests “walked” or not. And like you, intra-version test quirls quickly lead to summary judgement when student A produces a solution to a case not on their version of the test. I also allow toolsheets, so some of my students actually copy whatever the Hell is on their TS onto the current test. Yet more summary zero-ey goodness.

But yes, you got fucked on that one. You and your dept. head might anonymously send the dean a container of Vasoline. You should also make the Dean get tested by the school nurse, just in case. :dubious:

The short fix, short of corrupt deus ex machina-esque machinations, is to use a separate inventory code, just for the special eds needs cases. If you’re really OCD about it, individually match the test inventory code to the student. Then explicitly warn everybody involved that only that test is to be used for credit. The presence of an “official special test version” in conflict with a “standard test”, with both present at the office makes such dean-ial abuses more difficult.

I also attach a protocol to all my tests, explicitly laying out what is cheating, and what is not. They must sign the thing before I’ll render a single point on the test.

I’m fortunate in that most of my cheaters are sufficiently bad at it, and bad in general that their academic failures are frequently coincident with the cheating. Moot, meet Due Process, Due Process, meet Moot.

28

Maybe he wrote it back in '95 and said, “I need an easy elective… I wrote and copyrighted that shit 11 years ago”

Not likely, but before you fuck his life, consider the 1/1,000,000 posssibility.

29

…and … maybe he put the Chinese in there to throw you off???

huh huh huh?

30

[QUOTE=D_Odds]
Thank you for that wonderful piece of insight, prruber. However, as cheat is actually ‘taehc’ spelled backwards, and teach spelled backwards would be ‘hcaet’, you get an F for this course.
[/QUOTE]

You rock!

31

[QUOTE=Eleusis]
Maybe he wrote it back in '95 and said, “I need an easy elective… I wrote and copyrighted that shit 11 years ago”

Not likely, but before you fuck his life, consider the 1/1,000,000 posssibility.
[/QUOTE]

[Dr. Evil] RiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighT. [/Dr. E]

Perhaps it stemmed from when he was a secret agent, inflitrating the Chinese government under his false Chinese alias name, at the age of 9. :wink:

32

Monstre, I’m still interested in the answer to my question in post #24: did you try Googling the code of that A student’s Yahtzee program? Do you routinely check the code of students you don’t otherwise suspect of cheating?

33

That’s not really cheating himself. The guy in my high-school biology class who cheated on the colour blindness test, :smack: now that is cheating yourself. :rolleyes:

34

[QUOTE=commasense]
Monstre, I’m still interested in the answer to my question in post #24: did you try Googling the code of that A student’s Yahtzee program? Do you routinely check the code of students you don’t otherwise suspect of cheating?
[/QUOTE]

I’ll elaborate more on this later (I didn’t get to it yet because I’m still finishing up the project grading and final summer grades have to be submitted by tomorrow, and I had an all-day faculty meeting/workshop today…), BUT…

the short answer: No, not at first (on googling the Yahtzee code), although I did look at the code itself just to check out the overall design. And after seeing your question initially, I googled a few pieces of it just for the hell of it, and didn’t find anything.

But I’ll come back and answer more generally on “routine checking” and such, after I get these grades all submitted.

35

I’m really liking this XF grade at the College of Charleston. The only way to improve it would be to make an XF worth -1 quality points, so that it actually causes more damage to a GPA than an honest F.

36

[QUOTE=cerberus]
I’m really liking this XF grade at the College of Charleston. The only way to improve it would be to make an XF worth -1 quality points, so that it actually causes more damage to a GPA than an honest F.
[/QUOTE]

Now that’s an interesting idea. Haven’t seen that kind of thing on transcripts before – but definitely interesting!

commasense, getting back to your questions…

Typically in THIS class, it’s not something I’ve ever worried about, due to the reasons mentioned in the OP – these are usually the better programming students, it’s an elective, etc. etc. So no, I don’t routinely Google-check the code from these projects.

In my lower-level programming classes, the assignments are more rigidly designed – and of course, everybody’s working based on the same specification. In those courses, I regularly run each submission folder through a nice program (actually, a free service online from the folks who developed it) that can look at an entire set of submissions at once and give back a report on code similarity within that set. It’s quite good and not fooled by changes in variable names, spacing, comments, etc. Not 100% perfect, but when it errs, it’s on the side of caution (i.e. not reporting some lines as a match that actually may be). So I always look at any suspicious cases physically with a side-by-side comparison.

A very nice feature of this program – it formats the results as a temporary web page, and I can do those comparisons right from the links on the results page – it sets them up in side-by-side frames and color codes the matching pieces. And the best part? It’s simple to do – one unix command (which runs a Perl script – I just have to plug in certain command-line arguments) and everything is sent off. The results come in seconds. So I can check for any suspicious cases in just a couple minutes.

This Java project doesn’t really fall into the above category, because it’s more open-ended and everybody does a different game. But I do specify the guidelines for researching online resources. And in this Java course, I get primarily students that I’ve already had, taking my prior C++ Object Oriented Programming course. So I already pretty much know whether they did their own work in the C++ course. I’ve never had a problem with it before in this elective Java course before.

So yes, I do regularly run quick checks for code similarity – but that’s on assignments where everybody’s doing the same program specification – and using this very quick server program. It doesn’t take long – and that program just helps me single out any cases that I might need to look at in more detail.

37

In Spain, most schools allow students to take out their copy of the tests (for any that’s not multiple choice; sometimes for multiple-choice as well). Students are supposed and expected to run some archaeology, dig out copies of old tests, and use them as “self-practice homework” - after all, what better way to find out what kind of problems the prof will throw at you than trying to solve the ones he threw at previous students? One of my college professors started teaching his class 2 years before I was born… and I do have the photocopy of those older-than-me exams.

Of course, profs also change the test every time.

The professor for whom I TA’d in the States, an Polish born gent, didn’t change the test at all. The questions were from the book, but not exactly the ones in the book’s exercises. Well, actually, he did change the test: he changed the order of the questions but not the questions themselves - so, if anybody had just brought in a pre-filled answer sheet, that anybody would’a been screwed, but getting a copy of previous exams was absolutely THE best way to practice for your own exam.

He told students they could take their copy of the exam out. Pretty much none did: they thought it was cheating - even though he had specifically told them they could! Myself and other TAs pointed out to our students that they could try and get copies of previous exams and use them for practice - they were horrified by the suggestion. Most, because they thought it was cheating (it’s not cheating if it’s allowed); some, because they thought it was too much work (don’t get me started on those, my English is not good enough to express how low an opinion I have of their lazy rear ends).

I had two students in separate classes who, as we neared the mid-term, came up to me and told me they’d obtained copies of previous exams (yay!) and, “uh, I’m sorry, but, aren’t like, most of the questions all the same?” “Oh, yes. :bright smile: Nice to see someone’s paying attention!”

38

[QUOTE=flight]
So, what happens to him? Fail the assignment and therefore the class? Chace to make up? Reported for academic dishonesty and booted out of school?
[/QUOTE]

Update: I turned his grade in as an “Incomplete”, pending the outcome of the matter. I’ve sent him an e-mail telling him he needs to come see me about his project (and that his code was identical to that found on the web).

Going through the official “procedure”. Waiting for his reply now.

39

[QUOTE=vivalostwages]
Yet they still copy and paste things verbatim from various sites, thinking we won’t notice that the skill level and style vary so drastically from one paragraph to the next that it’s obvious it’s not their own work.
[/QUOTE]

My English teacher friend and I were at Starbucks once and he was grading papers. The assignment was to write a book report on an assigned book (a “simplified” classic, IIRC) and he showed me a report one of his Japanese students turned it. There was a beautifily crafted paragraph, using a vocabulary which *I * didn’t know, and at the end was one additional sentence “And it was well.” :dubious:

40

Monstre: thanks for answering my question. My point was whether you make an effort to guard against your own confirmation bias by subjecting all (or at least some) students to the same checks as those who seem obviously to be cheating. I don’t doubt your ability to detect cheating, but you might be at risk of relying on it too much, and get fooled by really good cheating, or by someone whom you would prefer not to suspect. You could protect against this by Googling everyone’s code, or by randomly spot checking a certain number, even if they didn’t set off your internal detector.