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[@SLAC]

Try number 2 (in the correct thread!):

Last semester I broke up a cheating ring between my morning class and afternoon class. (I busted them when someone in the afternoon class wrote down the answers to the morning class's quiz. After a bit of brow-beating others ‘fessed up.) Then I caught someone cheating on a final using a thin whiteboard marker to put answers on his leg. (It wipes of very easily; I tested it). Then I noticed that the afternoon class’s grade distribution on the following exam dropped significantly. Hmmmm.

I was taken aback by it all, but maybe I'm naive. I'm wondering if anyone else has had cheating problems with students today who seemingly do anything for a good grade? And how do they do it?

[Yeah]

I don't use the same exams or quizzes for two classes, so I've never had anything like that, but some of the things I've caught before that seemed to be going above and beyond were going to the restroom in the middle of a test and having notes stashed in the bathroom, having answers taped to the underside of the bill of a baseball cap.  Needlesss to say, no one leaves the room now after an exam starts and baseball caps go backwards on the head.

[anon]

Yep.  Just last week, I had a student come up to me after a test to tell me that she couldn't concentrate because she was so nervous about a girl next to her cheating.  I didn't see it, but apparently the cheater kept looking down at a 3 by 5 card in her hand.  

I think, though, that I'm able to reduce a lot of cheating by simply giving multiple versions of each exam.  I also walk around the room constantly, in the hope that the more paranoid students will believe that I see everything and will refrain from cheating.

[Senior Scholar]

All of these simple cheating devices (notes on leg, on 3 x 5 card, in restroom) are and have been chronic for generations, or at least they were well-used in the 1950s, when I was an undergraduate, and in the 1920s, when my mother was. Faculty who are not taking precautions are, so far as I can see, in the same position as folks who leave their keys in the ignition -- yes, cheating/stealing is wrong, but certain behaviors on our part are an invitation to wrongdoing. And, alas, we have a dedicated, non-networked computer in a barren office which we have learned we need to use for grad students taking a prelim. It's the much fancier electronic and wireless means of cheating that most of us don't know enough about yet.

[bennyhaha]

My suggestion would be to go beyond walking around so that they feel that they cannot cheat.  I basically do the same laps around the room, varying direction and whatnot, but looking for different things each time.  I'll go around looking for notes in laps or under the table, for cell phones or ipods that are out, or for people looking somewhere other than their paper.  It's definitely more of a case of looking FOR specific things vs. just being aware that there could be cheating.

[utopia slac]

re Yeah:

if you tell your students not to go to the bathroom and wear their
caps backwards, aren't they offended at you for suggesting they may
be intend on cheating?

they would be on my campus (not that i necessarily agree with that)

here at a nationally known slac, though not for comp scie, we have a very
strong honor code.

we are to leave the classroom after we hand out the exam and only return
to collect them. the students sign an honor code saying they will not cheat.
when i started here i once stayed behind out of habit to be available if
there were questions (and do some other work in the meantime) and the
students were somewhat up in arms for me not leaving immediately.

all of the cs student accounts are open by default - this means any student
can look at (and copy) any other student's code. again, this would be
a violation of the honor code.

i remember what it was like to be a student and the pressures that exist.
i think it is naive to assume they all could withstand the temptation, but
perhaps i'm just old and jaded.

actually, give some of the work i have received, i am quite convinced
that those students at least didn't cheat ....

[%sig%]

[Odessa]

Hi @ SLAC,

I had an experience earlier this semester with cheating on a quiz -- an 8 point quiz -- in a 400 level class.  Oh yeah, and the subject matter for the course is business ethics!  To say that I was dismayed would be putting it lightly.  Some of this is chronicled in a series of posts on the Balancing Work and Life forum - I too misposted {grin}.  If you're curious, search "The Ol' Academic Integrity Issue" in the last 60 days.  (The postings were around January 26-28.)

I turned it into a "teachable moment," but despite the reassurances of some of my colleagues who thought I handled it well (one was, in fact, jealous of the opportunity to make a point), I fear that it will come back to haunt me on student evals.  Based on the response papers I had the students write, they were livid.  The sad thing is that only a few were mad at their classmates.  The majority of them were very mad at me ... for calling them on it, for putting them in a position to face the issue and make a decision, for forcing them to think about it.  I received a lot of "this is your [the professor's] problem, not our problem."  One student threatened to report me for unethical behavior because I hadn't lived up to my "responsibility" to "just deal with it."  All of this led rather neatly to a structure upon which to build a session on "why people do - or don't do - certain things when faced with an ethical dilemma."  It's a session I had built into the course anyway, but this made it very real.  Based on the body language vibes I got during this class session (and the response papers), it may have made it too real.

In fairness, there were some students who were as dismayed as I was and asked the obvious question of "if people will cheat for 8 points, what will they do when the stakes are much higher?"  It was also very interesting to see how students who sat through the same process viewed the events very differently.  (Gave me an opportunity to talk about the role of perception.)  There were also, sadly, many students who didn't seem at all disturbed by the presence of cheating.  In fact, many considered it standard behavior.  (What they didn't consider standard was my response to it.)

So, are you naive?  Yes, I'm afraid you are if you think cheating is the very rare exception - especially if you add plagiarism into the quiz/exam cheating.  How do they do it?  Lots of ways, including the more old-fashioned ones already mentioned (and let's not forget the sorority/fraternity exam and paper files).  They will also text message back and forth, use cell phone cameras to take pictures of an exam page to send to a buddy, they will peel the label off of a water bottle, write answers inside and reattach the label....

My "solutions" at this point include:

1.  on-line, open book quizzes (if my goal is to simply make sure they've cracked the book before coming to class)
2.   group "reading" quizzes in class (peer pressure is an amazingly powerful tool - they don't want to look like fools in front of peers) and they learn from discussing points with each other.  I will use these quizzes as the jumping off point for how I present a lecture - structuring the lecture to address the questions in more detail.
3.  reserving larger rooms for exams and forcing them to spread out
4.  requiring that everything except pen, pencil and  exam pages be placed against the outer walls of the room (baseball caps, water bottles, coats, backpacks)
5.  I write exams that will push them in terms of time.  I warn them about this,  "You need to know your stuff to get through this exam in a satisfactory manner within the alloted time."  Cheating takes time and I don't give that to them.  Then I work really hard at writing a tough, to-the-minute, but fair exam.
6.  I've experimented with allowing the students to bring in a crib sheet in the form of one side of an 8 1/2 X 11 page of handwritten notes.  They can put as much as they want on it, but it must be handwritten.  Their natural inclination is to load it up with definitions and frameworks, which I do ask about, but not to the extent that if that's all they "know" they can get an A.  The exams are much more applied, but the crib sheets accomplish several things:  helps de-stress students who have exam anxiety, takes the emphasis off of pure memorization as "learning,"  lessens the drive / incentive to cheat and, what I consider the real benefit, focuses their study efforts.  Many students have reported to me that the process of creating the crib sheet was much more valuable than actually having it in the exam.  I haven't made this practice standard yet, but I'm thinking about it.
7.  I don't even pretend to try and do something else, like grading, while they take the exam.  I walk around a lot.  Sometimes I fear I make the wrong students nervous... oh well.
8.  Don't allow students to keep any portion of the exam either upon completion or review.  (I go over exams in class.  If they want more time / detail, they have to see me during office hours.)  Even doing this, I still write new exams every term, recycling only a very few questions here or there and changing those a bit.

As for the prevalance of cheating....
Just last week I was in a doctor's waiting room and picked up a copy of Reader's Digest which had an article about cheating.  I think it was the current issue (March 06).  Not a definitive commentary on the subject by any means, but you might find the article interesting.  There was also a fairly recent piece in the Chronicle about how technology driven cheating is making standard multiple choice exams obsolete.  I also saw a similar article someplace else (NYT maybe?), but I don't remember exactly where.

Sorry that you're experiencing this.  It can be very stressful.  Make sure that you're not taking the cheating as a personal afront (I used to do that - "How dare you do this to me?").  Trust me, it only feels personal.  It isn't.

O.

[%sig%]

[Thundering Marshmallow]

I remember that thread, O. Good suggestion to review it, and kudos for taking the time now to bring us up to date.

What irony, in a business ethics course. I hope you don't suffer longterm fallout from student dismay. Everyone loves the successful rogue; no one loves the whistleblower.

[bennyhaha]

In response to the cheating over 8 points...a fellow TA recently had a student turn in a totally plagiarised assignment *for extra credit*!  I can't imagine what kind of logic would lead you to possibly risk academic sanctions for extra credit.

[Dansuri]

(This is from a handout I put together a while back.)

Preventative Strategies

Although students are ultimately responsible for their own behavior, instructors can take many measures to effectively reduce cheating. Cheating is a crime of opportunity; as instructors reduce the opportunity and motivation to cheat, academic honesty will increase. Following is a list of suggestions; use these as a starting point to determine the best ways to prevent cheating in your own class.

1. Exams & Quizzes

a. Proctor exams: Remain in the room, watch students (walk about the room, use assistance to proctor larger classes)

b. Exam protocol: Clearly announce and enforce rules for testing before each test, such as students must clear desks, close books, zip backpacks, turn off and put away cell phones, may not leave room during test, may not talk with one another, may not pass objects (such as pens, erasers, etc.), may not use electronic devices, require students to spread out (for instance to sit in every other row only), etc.

c. Permit use of limited study aids during the exams. Appropriate for some classes, allowing the students to bring in a page (or note card) of notes can reduce test anxiety and the likelihood of cheating.

d. Exam format: Create multiple versions of the test with varied question (or answer) order (hand these out strategically to make it difficult for students to cheat by copying one another), create different test versions for different sections of the class (this might include changing the question order, as well as varying essay or short answer topics).  

e. Previous exams: Students can cheat by circulating graded exams from previous semesters. If you use similar exams from semester to semester either carefully account for each test—do not allow any tests to remain with students—or level the playing field by allowing all students access to old exams in the form of sample tests (i.e., as class handouts, online, or library reserve).

f. Online Exams: Allow open-book exams, as there is no practical way for you to prevent students from using materials during the test. However, a timed test will limit how much information a student can look up. Additionally, certain question types (such as application, interpretation) are more effective in an open-book setting. Another potential problem with online testing is for students to share information about the test. Using a large test bank, with questions randomly selected for each student, can minimize this problem.

2. Assignments

a. Assignment design:
1. Create unique assignment questions; vary these from semester to semester.    
2. Require students to turn in multiple drafts rather than accepting only a final draft.
3. Require students to answer questions reflecting understanding of their paper topic as part of an in-class exam.

b. Use online tools, such as Turn-it-In or Google, to search out plagiarized work. Browse online resources available to students seeking out free term papers—awareness can help you in developing preventative measures.

c. Design your class policy so that the consequences for turning in a plagiarized paper are more severe than the consequences for a missing or late paper.

[survey]

At my university, they tell us that studies have shown that students are less likely to cheat if you stress the importance of honesty at various times: beginning of class, etc....  Telling students you take an honor code seriously and stressing the negative consequences of cheating apparently has some effect, according to my U.

I'm curious what others think of this.  Does this fit with your experience?  I've tried it, and I didn't have any cheating issues (that I detected), but I might have had a very honest (or very clever) class.

[15 Square Inches (X2)]

Well, for certain of my courses (non-majors), I ALLOW them to bring 1 (one) 3" x 5" index card to the exam with anything they want written on it, front and back.

I say to them,  "As you decide what you want to put on the card, you have to decide about what you think is the 'important' stuff, and that makes you think about everything--since you have only a small space that's buildable 'real estate' for the reminders you think you might need."

They all seem to like this idea--and I STILL get what seems a normal number of terrible grades.

[Odessa]

I can only speak of my experience.  I very, very strongly emphasize how seriously I take issues of academic integrity.  There is a statement in my syllabus with a link to the university policy webpage.  I talk about it in the first several class periods every semester (partly to catch students who have added and to underscore my seriousness to all students.)  I hand-out material about understanding and avoiding plagiarism.  I've been known to quiz students on that to make sure they read and understood the hand-out.  As far as I can tell, this doesn't seem to have much of an effect.

Last semester I filed two academic dishonesty incident reports.  This semester I had the quiz cheating incident in the business ethics class.  In that latter incident, some of the students acknowledged that I had been very clear about my zero-tolerance policy.  I think that's part of the issue.  Students hear us yammer about integrity and not plagiarizing or cheating, but they "get away with it" enough that they either don't believe us or think it's worth the risk.  I don't know.

It doesn't help that there are institutions / administrations that talk about "honor" and "academic integrity," but when faced with situations prefer to sweep them under the rug - often at a cost to the professor's authority.

Thankfully, I'm in a place where admin has backed me up.  Now I'm hoping that, with time, the student grapevine will make it clear that I'm not to be messed with.  Check back with me in a couple of years.

O.

[%sig%]

[Poppins]

Cheers to Odessa. Great comments.

Here is my cheating story:
After a midterm exam and been returned to the class, a student brought me her paper and said "I think you overlooked my answer to part b on question 2". I glanced at it and sure enough, it looked as though I had given her full marks for part A, and skipped part B, resulting in a score of 5 out of 10. It looked like a slam-dunk.

Later in my office, I sat down to regrade the exam. As soon as I looked at it, my stomach dropped and I felt inexplicably dizzy. It took a moment to put my finger on what was wrong... I suddenly realized that the red ink marks on the paper were written with a completely different type of pen from the one I use. I'm not sure why I reacted so strongly, but I started to sweat and just about had heart palpitations.

Here's what a closer examination revealed:
1. student had removed staple and separated exam pages
2. whited out her response to the question
3. photocopied the page
4. wrote in a new, correct answer
5. added red marks to make it look like I had graded part a, but skipped part b
6. inserted her new "page 3" between the original exam pages
7. stapled the whole thing together
8. returned it to the instructor (me!) to request a higher mark.

There was ample physical evidence, including double sets of staple holes on all pages except the altered one (which had a pair of black dots instead, where the holes on the original page had been).

I won't go into the months of meetings, reams of memos, lawyers statements etc. but I am extremely thankful that we have clear policies and procedures, and deans who assume the burden of investigating such cases and determining guilt and/or punishment.

[Dansuri]

 
> Here's what a closer examination revealed:
> 1. student had removed staple and separated exam pages
> 2. whited out her response to the question...[etc.]


This is why students get visitation rights but never custody of their exams.

[%sig%]