Comments on: Universities Wimp Out on Fighting Cheaters

By: Rich Barrett

Rich Barrett — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:38:33 +0000

Higher education: a sham and a scam. I really can’t disagree with many of the writers here. It took me several years after I graduated to realize that college was about making money, not education. Get ‘em in, get ‘em out, get their money, and wish them the best was the university’s mantra.
The people making money had never darkened the doorstep of a university except for athletic contests. Some of the happiest people I have ever known were not college graduates. Now, this is not to knock a sound education, but there must be standards to gauge what one has learned. Yes, I am afraid the Chinese or Russians will eat our lunch some day.

By: Screen Sleuth

Screen Sleuth — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:56:21 +0000

Sadly, when I attended college (briefly) this was pretty much the norm. Colleges are mostly status symbols and adult transition “training grounds” nowadays and learning is secondary, for the most part.

By: Thomas Gondolfi

Thomas Gondolfi — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:13:08 +0000

I taught at ITT Tech for two years. I noticed that during math tests, there were quite a few sidelong looks made during tests. Rather than confront these situations, I made two different tests. The questions were almost identical but the answers were different by two orders of magnitude. I then handed out the tests to alternate students.
The people who copied answers from their neighbor had extremely poor grades. I did this twice then told the students what I had done and why. After that, I would label the tests A and B even if they were alike. No more problem. Ironicaly one student realized on the first test after five questions that his neighbors answers were wrong so he did his own work but didn’t go back to correct the first five. He got all his answers correct.

By: Debbiesym

Debbiesym — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 16:48:18 +0000

Colleges should have a mandatory workshop at the start of each school year, where cheating and other transgressions are discussed, and where it’s made clear what the consequences are for these actions. Maybe a teacher (with the help of a willing student) could play-act a scenario in which they catch a kid cheating and the kid is given maximum punishment.

In other words, I think that since it’s a growing problem, colleges and universities need to treat it as a big deal, and to give it a special focus. By making it clear that teachers are “on the lookout,” maybe at least some kids will think twice before plagiarizing.

By: Former A&M Student

Former A&M Student — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:37:50 +0000

There appears to be a typo in your article. You state that Loye Young was a professor at Texas A&M, he wasn’t. He actually taught at Texas A&M International University. These are two separate universities.

By: Bud

Bud — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:25:35 +0000

I’m going to take a contrarian view here, which will, I’m sure, tick off more than a few of the commentors:

Tom Lehrer had a funny, but good, observation about the real world -”Don’t shade your eyes, plagarize…. but, please to call it ‘research’”.

Not pretty, but outside the ivory tower, “research” is the norm.

The problem is not the internet (nor is it the “solution”), the problem is testing methods that depend on easily graded regurgitation. Most professors laugh condescendingly at madrassas which require unending rote memorization, but fail to recognize that demanding, essentially, paraphrasing in the age of cut and paste is equivalent.

Demand that cut and paste be documented with hyperlinks (think of them as footnotes ), demand that relationships between these be shown, demand that understanding be shown… but don’t think that because you required your students to read and THEN paraphrase that your requirement of this activity is either “teaching” or of more than minimal use in the real world.

By: squidly8

squidly8 — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:40:56 +0000

Hawkwood, wouldn’t you say that is prime reason for faculty to NOT pursue discipline. It requires unpaid effort on the part of the professor to pursue it. I am sure that too many professors simply find the time involved would be too burdensome.

I am not sure what the solution to that is but just my thoughts.

By: rightwingprof

rightwingprof — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:05:19 +0000

At my university, we pass off all incidents to the Dean of Students office and file academic dishonesty charges. The university is not leaving cheating to the professor to deal with.

By: Leigh Thelmadatter

Leigh Thelmadatter — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:35:41 +0000

A far worse problem than cheating is grade inflation. In this case, they dumb down the standards so that “cheating” isnt necessary… and cheat the students.

I did my first bachelors at Rutgers in the early 80′s. Did my second the late 90′s at the U of Arizona. Thank goddess I had the first go-around to teach me how to think because my experiece the second time was worthless. The only good it did me was to get a good GPA (4.0 as a matter of fact… and that a “perfect” GPA was possible should tell you something) to get into grad school.

Students who used to get a jolt in high school and college now get it when they enter the job market and realize that in most cases, their degrees worthless… to a large extent because employers know the shenanigans that are going on.

By: WiseOlBird

WiseOlBird — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:27:40 +0000

I guess I just went to the wrong school.
We threw a student out at 6am on the morning of Graduation. Of course that beat the heck out of 3am wake up calls. It was a bit cold then…