Future of Cheating

A group of us were discussing where we would like to see education go and, of course, the Internet and technology came up. I think it can be grand - but I am seeing too many students act like water and take the easiest possible course, even when it gets them nothing.

We were doing logic puzzles in a class and my third class was solving it so much faster than the first two, so I figured they had talked in the hall. No - they were googling the puzzle and the answer. This required no thought on their part and increased their understanding not at all.

Someone mentioned the following story. It is about 5th hand so I am sure it has been "telephoned" and morphed from the original. If anyone knows the original story, please let me know.

A college IT professor gave an intense assignment to his class. He told them they could use the information they could find on the internet but only to modify their own code. They could not just cut-and-paste and use it directly. And the code had to be able to be run successfully. And then he very deliberately put code on the Web that appeared to satisfy the assignment specs.

Some students turned in just the code from the Web. When the professor ran their code, it generated a report "I cheated. I am a bad boy." They got a zero.

Some students had tested the code, found what it did, modified that portion = and there was another way he caught them, and they received a diminished grade.

And others just did the work.

The cheaters complained to the university president that the professor had tricked them. The professor responded that if you do not know what code does, you should not be submitting it. That the university had an obligation to turn out quality craftsmen, and you were not quality if all you did was hack other people's work.

I did find something related about an NYU professor but I don't believe that was the original story.

How do you keep them from cheating?

How do you inspire students to take pride in their own work?

I had to sign honor codes in every college I ever attended (which gives you an idea about my antiquity) and cannot see students caring about their word.