Re: Attention Experienced Professionals
From: Daniel Morgan <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu>
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 19:02:46 -0700
Message-ID: <1097460250.413370_at_yasure>
>
>
> I was an adjunct at a noted Eastern U.S. University (consitently ranks high
> un U.S. News & World Report). I taught three terms before becoming
> completely disillusioned with the job due to the amount of cheating among
> students. Mind you I was teaching seniors, junors, and grad students. I
> could not believe that they got this far and the suddenly started cheating.
> This meant that profs were "looking the other way". Why? Maybe student
> reviews went into tenure or reserach decisions. I don't know. All I know is
> I caught cheaters in every class I taught. Without trying to. The most
> memorable example was on a take-home final. Stop laughing. How did I catch
> them? It was a DBA type of class, and I had given a business problem that
> needed to be analyzed and designed. I asked specific questions. The question
> had to do with the "best" naming of data files and tablespaces in Oracle
> (using OFA conventions). Basically, "What would you name the datafiles and
> tablespaces and why?" One student gave me DDL that created a bunch of tables
> that may have ultimately been used in the application. He had answered a
> question (incorrectly at that) I didn't ask. A couple of papers later, I
> think, "Didn't I _just_ read this?" The student made a very poor attempt at
> changing some attribute names, sizes and ordering, but had the same
> incorrect answer to an unasked question. UN-BE-lievable...
>
> Anyway, the punishment was up to me. Anything up to and including getting an
> "F" in the class. The incidents go on their "permanent records", and if
> there is another instance, they're out. Too lenient, IMO. Anyway, the "joke"
> of the whole incident was that both of these students (foreign, BTW, as alll
> the cheaters I caught except one happened to be) were both failing the class
> anyway. A projection of their grades showed that even if student 1 had
> gotten a 100 on the test (not going to happen, of course), he would barely
> have eked out a D. The other was flunking no matter what. My options? I
> could have been evil, and made them take another test knowing that they
> would flunk anyway, or just give them an F in the course. Giving another
> test would have made more work for _me_, so I just gave them both an F.
>
> Oh, I had made it abundantly clear in the first class and on the syllabus
> what types of collaboration were allowed and what weren't. I even explained
> how to post in newsgroups (identify yourself as a student, show the work
> you've done so far, and ask for advice, not answers). The final was given as
> "no collaboration".
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 19:02:46 -0700
Message-ID: <1097460250.413370_at_yasure>
Alan wrote:
> "--CELKO--" <jcelko212_at_earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:18c7b3c2.0410090721.234e5fec_at_posting.google.com...
>
>>>>This is one of the times of the year when we start getting a lot of >> >>questions from students. There have been several of tehse lately. >>Sometimes they state that they are students, and sometimes they try to >>disuise an assignment as a business problem hoping that someone will >>give them the answer. << >> >>In the US and most other countries, presenting someone else's work as >>your own will get you expelled from college. I suggest that you hunt >>down the school from which the post was made and report it to the head >>of their computer science department. I have gotten at least one kid >>in New Zealand kicked out of college myself. >> >>Another give-away I found is the some professors use my SQL PUZZLES & >>ANSWERS for questions. I can usually recognize these :) If the >>students are going to ask me to answer my own questions, they could at >>least buy the book. >> >>--CELKO--
>
>
> I was an adjunct at a noted Eastern U.S. University (consitently ranks high
> un U.S. News & World Report). I taught three terms before becoming
> completely disillusioned with the job due to the amount of cheating among
> students. Mind you I was teaching seniors, junors, and grad students. I
> could not believe that they got this far and the suddenly started cheating.
> This meant that profs were "looking the other way". Why? Maybe student
> reviews went into tenure or reserach decisions. I don't know. All I know is
> I caught cheaters in every class I taught. Without trying to. The most
> memorable example was on a take-home final. Stop laughing. How did I catch
> them? It was a DBA type of class, and I had given a business problem that
> needed to be analyzed and designed. I asked specific questions. The question
> had to do with the "best" naming of data files and tablespaces in Oracle
> (using OFA conventions). Basically, "What would you name the datafiles and
> tablespaces and why?" One student gave me DDL that created a bunch of tables
> that may have ultimately been used in the application. He had answered a
> question (incorrectly at that) I didn't ask. A couple of papers later, I
> think, "Didn't I _just_ read this?" The student made a very poor attempt at
> changing some attribute names, sizes and ordering, but had the same
> incorrect answer to an unasked question. UN-BE-lievable...
>
> Anyway, the punishment was up to me. Anything up to and including getting an
> "F" in the class. The incidents go on their "permanent records", and if
> there is another instance, they're out. Too lenient, IMO. Anyway, the "joke"
> of the whole incident was that both of these students (foreign, BTW, as alll
> the cheaters I caught except one happened to be) were both failing the class
> anyway. A projection of their grades showed that even if student 1 had
> gotten a 100 on the test (not going to happen, of course), he would barely
> have eked out a D. The other was flunking no matter what. My options? I
> could have been evil, and made them take another test knowing that they
> would flunk anyway, or just give them an F in the course. Giving another
> test would have made more work for _me_, so I just gave them both an F.
>
> Oh, I had made it abundantly clear in the first class and on the syllabus
> what types of collaboration were allowed and what weren't. I even explained
> how to post in newsgroups (identify yourself as a student, show the work
> you've done so far, and ask for advice, not answers). The final was given as
> "no collaboration".
I too give all tests, midterm and final, as take home. And I too allow collaboration. As close to the real-world as possible. Open book, open internet, open brain.
Any test given on a piece of paper is worth only as much as the paper on which it is printed.
-- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan_at_x.washington.edu (replace 'x' with 'u' to respond)Received on Mon Oct 11 2004 - 04:02:46 CEST