Cheating in College

[easysurfer]

Well, I had a call from my brother yesterday saying "call me back, it's important." What happened is that his oldest daughter's name popped up (computer checked) in school as having shared a physics lab with someone. But that wasn't what really happened. What did happen was some college aquaintance sent her an email and asked something like, "can I borrow your lab notes from last year, they don't use those anymore for test or labs." Well, this dummy then goes ahead and turns it in verbatim only changing my niece's name with his name. I guess he did the same to another person too.

Back to why I get the call. My niece had permanently deleted her email. Me having computer background, my brother calls me and asks, is the orgininal email recoverable? That would show that his daughter was misled into helping out. He tells me his daughter will call me from school.

I talk to my niece. I try to retrieve the deleted email. At first, we think it's gone. But then, Yes! I do find it via using TeamViewer to remotely connect to her computer and have her show me her email system. Luckily, her email system at school has a way of restoring permanently deleted emails (at least for some time).

Looks like tomorrow she has to present her side as to what happened. At least now, her side will be based on fact (the original email) as opposed to one's person's version vs another.

My niece is really a great kid. Kinda sad actually as the saying of "no good deed goes unpunished" happens again. No way would she intentionally help someone cheat if she knew that was his intent.

Hope it all turns out ok for her.

 

[Purron]

Lucky for her Uncle Easysurfer was ready to spring into action! She should fight this in the most fierce and determined possible way. Who wants something like that on your record? Could follow her around for years.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Lucky niece that you could retrieve that e-mail for her! And it should prove she simply lent her notes to someone as asked; that in itself shouldn't be considered cheating. She probably won't get burned again after this lesson learned the hard way.

Keep us posted!

 

[jIMOh]

LOL

one school's cheat is another's way of life.

I went to a top 5 engineering school. Every fraternity had a set of files of tests from every professor on campus. Computer labs too. This was mid 1990's and some of the test copies might have been 5-10 years old, or possibly older.

While I was a member, I remember discussions of purchasing the first house computer (pentium 33 mhz I believe) and a few members had 486's they brought to school with them.

Now the fraternity has a server, and all those test files are scanned as a pdf file. Want a copy of the old test? search for the pdf and print it.

We called these cribs, and the files were the crib system. EVERY TEST I ever took I looked at 2-3 cribs, sometimes more, the night before the test. When I did a lab I always looked at the lab's crib before I turned it in. I was not alone- every person I went to school with, save maybe 10%, were using the cribs as a tool to help them.


I took a class at another college while on co-op term, and asked before the test if anyone had a copy of the test from previous semester to study from. I was told if I did that it was considered cheating.

That school I took the 1 class from was not a top 5 school, so what do they know? LOL

 

[easysurfer]

Lucky niece that you could retrieve that e-mail for her! And it should prove she simply lent her notes to someone as asked; that in itself shouldn't be considered cheating. She probably won't get burned again after this lesson learned the hard way.

Keep us posted!

Yeah..Hopefully it all turns out okay.

Guess I had to help her learn what I did my last 10 years while w*rking. That is, protect my emails to CYA . Sad, but true.

I recall time and time again during w*rk, people would have a "bad memory" and I'd have to pull out an old email and say, "No, that wasn't what was said, I got this email from so and so, to refresh your memory, here's a copy of it.."

 

[easysurfer]

LOL

one school's cheat is another's way of life....

Yeah, I know there's a part of me that can't help but chuckle a little (Ah, to be in college again ). But you'd think the guy cheating would have more cheating smarts then copy a lab verbatim.

 

[jIMOh]

Yeah, I know there's a part of me that can't help but chuckle a little (Ah, to be in college again ). But you'd think the guy cheating would have more cheating smarts then copy a lab verbatim.

I am sure some of the items I turned in were copied at times 90% verbatim. In my day that was "tough" because few electronic media existed.

I know for labs, when assigned a group of 5 people and with 11 week semesters, we would often do the first lab writes up together, then assign weeks where person A does weeks 2 and 7, B does 3 and 8, C does 4 and 9... and so on. This was because the labs were one credit, and the amount of time each person wanted to spend on getting 1 credit was low, and the impact on GPA would be minimal. Granted none of the 6 in my groups were deans list.. so its possible in the 8 weeks the lab was not my responsibility, my name was on something a person might have copied from their crib system verbatim.

I know on my humanities write ups (that's liberal arts and other things not technical) I would often just skip the reading, read the cribs, then do a write up... and to this point its highly probable that things were 75% copied... because if the person doing write up before me used the same technique, and the person before him did too, then I am just another kink in the evolution of the paper.

They were my words, but possibly not my ideas. I can change sentence structure and make the same point...


and in fairness, this was same method used while w*rking on many many projects over my life.

When I did acoustic testing on submarines and we had to provide a write up (100-200 page report) we would copy the previous report, search and replace the sub names, then change the data to that current submarine's testing.

The conclusions were worded the same 50-75% of the time on those reports.

I write course material now for software... when the course has been released before, we are always starting with a course which has working activities and employers don't want us to spend time creating new activities if the olds ones still work.

 

[easysurfer]

I am sure some of the items I turned in were copied at times 90% verbatim. In my day that was "tough" because few electronic media existed.

I know for labs, when assigned a group of 5 people and with 11 week semesters, we would often do the first lab writes up together, then assign weeks where person A does weeks 2 and 7, B does 3 and 8, C does 4 and 9... and so on. This was because the labs were one credit, and the amount of time each person wanted to spend on getting 1 credit was low, and the impact on GPA would be minimal. Granted none of the 6 in my groups were deans list.. so its possible in the 8 weeks the lab was not my responsibility, my name was on something a person might have copied from their crib system verbatim.

I know on my humanities write ups (that's liberal arts and other things not technical) I would often just skip the reading, read the cribs, then do a write up... and to this point its highly probable that things were 75% copied... because if the person doing write up before me used the same technique, and the person before him did too, then I am just another kink in the evolution of the paper.

They were my words, but possibly not my ideas. I can change sentence structure and make the same point...


and in fairness, this was same method used while w*rking on many many projects over my life.

When I did acoustic testing on submarines and we had to provide a write up (100-200 page report) we would copy the previous report, search and replace the sub names, then change the data to that current submarine's testing.

The conclusions were worded the same 50-75% of the time on those reports.

I write course material now for software... when the course has been released before, we are always starting with a course which has working activities and employers don't want us to spend time creating new activities if the olds ones still work.

Actually, when you think about it, "sharing" (really sharing, not misleading others) other's work is more real life work environment than doing it on your own. Of course, I'm sure in an educational setting, they want students to make their own answers and not borrow past answers from others. A whole different mindset. I know in software development a big part is borrowing, and reusing, to not have to reinvent the wheel.

Maybe it's only me, but when I was in college, I actually preferred to just study and study on my own than try to make labs, tests, term papers etc. a group activitiy. For me, that just seemed easier.

Like when I hear in the news about organized crime, illegal bookies, etc. That seems like so much effort and coordination, why don't they just do that in a legit way?

 

[jIMOh]

Actually, when you think about it, "sharing" (really sharing, not misleading others) other's work is more real life work environment than doing it on your own. Of course, I'm sure in an educational setting, they want students to make their own answers and not borrow past answers from others. A whole different mindset. I know in software development a big part is borrowing, and reusing, to not have to reinvent the wheel.

Maybe it's only me, but when I was in college, I actually preferred to just study and study on my own than try to make labs, tests, term papers etc. a group activitiy. For me, that just seemed easier.

Like when I hear in the news about organized crime, illegal bookies, etc. That seems like so much effort and coordination, why don't they just do that in a legit way?

Much of the cribs saved me time- I know that overall, I put in less time studying than anyone else which just tried to master the material. Cribs showed you where to focus... if a professor always asked a question on such and such, then it was best to master that material... if you just tried to cover all material, staying on top of it could be daunting- almost like real w*rk.

There were some professors which knew about crib systems and did not care- these classes usually filled up fast.
There were some professors which knew about crib systems and purposely tried to break it- they would change up which subjects they tested on. Problem with that is they had schitzophrenic results- some smart kids would do not so well because the items tested were not mainstream even for people which did not use cribs.
There are certain subjects which don't matter- like calculus- I need to know the process more than the result, so anyone focusing on the questions from last semester really just missed the point.
There were some professors which just stopped giving tests to buck the system- they would do midterm and final, and those two grades were each 50% of the grade (so get lower than a 40% on either one and you would fail the course).
Some professors actually asked the same questions every year (more or less). Some professors would ask the same types of questions
Some professors stopped giving tests once they learned about it (projects only)- those were popular classes too.

Some subjects I had to master the material- calculus and basic mechanics/physics courses (like statics, mechanics of material, thermo) because so much of that was looking up number on 1 table, plugging it in, breaking down other variables, looking up on a different table, plugging it in, then breaking down more variables, looking up on a third table, plugging it in...


When I needed to know the process over the exact material, those are tough to crib. When the subjects stay the

More power to those which spent their every weeknight studying. I had beer to drink and hearts to break. LOL

 

[plex]

The problem with school is that most of the material is not going to be useful, or even remembered, by the time the student hits the workplace. As such, going to school is essentially for the purpose of getting a well-respected piece of paper. I have always thought of school this way, and this has only been confirmed for me as I went through each level of schooling. The best classes for learning were the ones which had hands-on projects, those were few and far between, and were plagiarism was impossible.

The professors with strict plagiarism policies were the laziest professors of them all. They did not want to have to go through the trouble of changing their tests even every few years. Usually they were poor at teaching the material as well.

There was a crib system at my engineering school, but usually the tests were not identical. Copying at least somewhat was absolutely essential for labs, because 5 labs on top of 20 credit hours is an insane amount of work. For the most part, only the worst/laziest students didn't go out of their way to find study aids, and the ones who did not, usually failed out (40% attrition is common in engineering schools).

 

[jIMOh]

The problem with school is that most of the material is not going to be useful, or even remembered, by the time the student hits the workplace. As such, going to school is essentially for the purpose of getting a well-respected piece of paper. I have always thought of school this way, and this has only been confirmed for me as I went through each level of schooling. The best classes for learning were the ones which had hands-on projects, those were few and far between, and were plagiarism was impossible.

The professors with strict plagiarism policies were the laziest professors of them all. They did not want to have to go through the trouble of changing their tests even every few years. Usually they were poor at teaching the material as well.

There was a crib system at my engineering school, but usually the tests were not identical. Copying at least somewhat was absolutely essential for labs, because 5 labs on top of 20 credit hours is an insane amount of work. For the most part, only the worst/laziest students didn't go out of their way to find study aids, and the ones who did not, usually failed out (40% attrition is common in engineering schools).

agreed on all points

I enjoyed the project classes, because interacting with people is a more important life skill than being able to work through a triple integral of a polynomial LOL.

and it turns out you and I went to same school, in looking at notes/conversation from Oct of 2008 between us. LOL

 

[Texas Proud]

When I did acoustic testing on submarines and we had to provide a write up (100-200 page report) we would copy the previous report, search and replace the sub names, then change the data to that current submarine's testing.

The conclusions were worded the same 50-75% of the time on those reports.

Funny story on this kind of work.... For awhile I was a trustee on asset back securities... where I worked actually started some of the original mortgage backed securites (a LONG time ago when they were real).... One time I was in our attorney's office on a new deal that some other law firm put together... I asked her about why they all seem to be the same... sec 1 was X, sec 2 was Y... if they did not need it they left the section in but removed the words... she said all lawyers copy others work... I did not know it at the time, but she was one of the people who wrote the first draft... and she added some strange wording at different place just to see who copied their work... every one of the trusts that I had included her 'strange' sentence... so we know every one was copied from her original work... I doubt any other attorney had ever read the whole think and asked... 'why is this written this way'....

 

[Texas Proud]

I never did do the 'crib' studying like so many others... but it was interesting that the school library was the holder of the cribs where I went..

One professor told people about it... so you could review how he gave tests.. the first test he gave, I got in the low 90s.. like 93... but I was in the bottom of the class as the average was like 97... the second test I went up to the 97... but the average was again 97...

NOW... the third test... the professor threw the class for a loop... his first two test were verbatium of the prior year... not #3... since I did not do the cribs... I knew the material and again made in the high 90s... nobody else did... nobody else made in the 80s... there were a few in the 70s... a few more in the 60s... and so on... the average score was below 50...

Found out that some people did not even READ the exam.... just put down the answers of test 3.... can you say DUHHHH....

This one girl who made a very low score dropped.... she had a 4.0 average coming in and now could not make an A in the class... I thought it was funny as heck...

 

[Nords]

I went to a top 5 engineering school. Every fraternity had a set of files of tests from every professor on campus. Computer labs too. This was mid 1990's and some of the test copies might have been 5-10 years old, or possibly older.

The professors with strict plagiarism policies were the laziest professors of them all. They did not want to have to go through the trouble of changing their tests even every few years. Usually they were poor at teaching the material as well.

USNA's honor code is pretty straightforward-- don't lie, cheat, or steal.

Every company (of ~125 mids) had their own "gouge files" of just about every quiz, lab, and exam given during the last 20 years. This was not a secret, and if it wasn't for those files then some profs wouldn't have bothered updating their curriculum. (In 1981 one of my profs used a slide titled "The New Grand Coulee Dam".) If you consulted the gouge files then you were still expected to produce original work.

Heaven forbid you should consult the gouge files before the lab and figure out how to make it work right. And don't tell anyone that they could study a dozen different old exams during the week before the test. Because if the administration wasn't careful, some of those enterprising mids might actually learn something.

The arms race didn't always go to the students. One instructor, who gave multiple-choice exams to death, had been totally figured out by his third exam. The class average (of over 30 mids) was 94%. He said "Oh, well, it's clear that the gouge was out for this one" and administered a new exam (from a new question bank) the following week.

Of course the early 1990s midshipman who bribed the printer for an advance copy of an electrical engineering exam... that's cheating!

 

[jIMOh]

USNA's honor code is pretty straightforward-- don't lie, cheat, or steal.

Every company (of ~125 mids) had their own "gouge files" of just about every quiz, lab, and exam given during the last 20 years. This was not a secret, and if it wasn't for those files then some profs wouldn't have bothered updating their curriculum. (In 1981 one of my profs used a slide titled "The New Grand Coulee Dam".) If you consulted the gouge files then you were still expected to produce original work.

Heaven forbid you should consult the gouge files before the lab and figure out how to make it work right. And don't tell anyone that they could study a dozen different old exams during the week before the test. Because if the administration wasn't careful, some of those enterprising mids might actually learn something.

The arms race didn't always go to the students. One instructor, who gave multiple-choice exams to death, had been totally figured out by his third exam. The class average (of over 30 mids) was 94%. He said "Oh, well, it's clear that the gouge was out for this one" and administered a new exam (from a new question bank) the following week.

Of course the early 1990s midshipman who bribed the printer for an advance copy of an electrical engineering exam... that's cheating!

I agree stealing test ahead of time is cheating...

there was one prof which was notorious for reusing questions- for 30+ years. His key was he collected his tests and did not return them (you only need scantrons to see the grades).

So what a group of us did (3 of us) was write down the test questions and how to solve the problems as prof was reviewing answers with us after the test.

Before the final exam, the 3 of us put our test questions together. The result was the final exam was the sum of the 3 tests, some variable changed, some questions were the negative of before (a NOT appeared, or was removed, from about 10 of the 60 questions).

IMO a person learns more from the organizing of the questions than from the material itself. Its not like I have used Fluids since I graduated anyway

unless you count Beer, then in that case I have a fluids lab every week.

 

[Gumby]

USNA's honor code is pretty straightforward-- don't lie, cheat, or steal.

Every company (of ~125 mids) had their own "gouge files" of just about every quiz, lab, and exam given during the last 20 years. This was not a secret, and if it wasn't for those files then some profs wouldn't have bothered updating their curriculum.

I don't know whether such a thing existed in my company or not. It probably did, but I assiduously avoided knowing anything about it. I preferred to do my own thing, and it worked out fine that way. I felt that each grade I earned was solely the result of my own efforts.

 

[Nords]

I don't know whether such a thing existed in my company or not. It probably did, but I assiduously avoided knowing anything about it. I preferred to do my own thing, and it worked out fine that way. I felt that each grade I earned was solely the result of my own efforts.

Um, your classmate Mark assured me many times that Bruce didn't make it through based solely on his brains and his good looks...

There were times when my reconstruction efforts taught me more than I learned in the classroom.

 

[Gumby]

Um, your classmate Mark assured me many times that Bruce didn't make it through based solely on his brains and his good looks...

Bruce had neither brains nor good looks, and a personality to match.

 

[Emeritus]

I've been teaching at the University level for 35 years. Never ever used a multiple choice or similar exam. Almost always I use take home exams.
Just worked up a question that asks engineering students to describe what might have gone wrong with the Ash cloud debacle and to describe the technical and public policy issues involved in the decisions. You give them lots of references and a week to write.
No, they are not allowed to collaborate.
The students sort themselves very quickly into "can do" "can't do" and "won't even try"
Next exam focuses on the second group

Back to the original poster
I've participated in a lot of academic honesty cases. Many many innocent students have their work hijacked by others.

 

[Orchidflower]

I've been teaching at the University level for 35 years. Never ever used a multiple choice or similar exam. Almost always I use take home exams.
Just worked up a question that asks engineering students to describe what might have gone wrong with the Ash cloud debacle and to describe the technical and public policy issues involved in the decisions. You give them lots of references and a week to write.
No, they are not allowed to collaborate.
The students sort themselves very quickly into "can do" "can't do" and "won't even try"
Next exam focuses on the second group

Back to the original poster
I've participated in a lot of academic honesty cases. Many many innocent students have their work hijacked by others.

Yeah, take the ez way, learn nothing and just do enough to get by. Way to go, loser!
I can't even imagine the frustration this should cause parents and educators dealing with lazy students like that fella. You must have alot of patience if you "teach" students like him.

 

[Bestwifeever]

....Looks like tomorrow she has to present her side as to what happened.

Any word on how her meeting went?

 

[easysurfer]

Any word on how her meeting went?

Haven't heard anything yet. She's actually taking finals this week. I'm sure when I talk to my brother (her dad), in a day or two probably, that will be the first topic we'll talk about.

I guess in the meantime, no news is good news

 

[haha]

You must have alot of patience if you "teach" students like him.

Well they all pay tuition, good students and bad. And the money from each group spends the same.

Ha

 

[easysurfer]

Well, I got a call from my brother today. I asked him about how things went with his daughter. Looks like it's "to be continued..." Ends up the school administrator who is supposed to hear the case is out of town, away from school. This is finals week and the school is out for the summer so not until next semester will this continue.

 

[Westernskies]

Well, I got a call from my brother today. I asked him about how things went with his daughter. Looks like it's "to be continued..." Ends up the school administrator who is supposed to hear the case is out of town, away from school. This is finals week and the school is out for the summer so not until next semester will this continue.

"Time wounds alll heels"