When persistence isn’t a good thing… December 19, 2012
Posted by mareserinitatis in education, engineering, teaching.Tags: cheating, grades, teaching
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I unfortunately have to turn in some forms describing how I caught some students cheating.
This is frustrating because every semester since I started teaching, I have managed to catch at least one cheater. I keep hoping that I’ll get through a semester without dealing with this issue, but I suspect that the reason I might not catch any cheaters is because they’re getting better at it or I’ve overlooked something. It would be nice, however, if it meant that they’d actually stopped.
I’m very confused why students would cheat in my class. I have a very open policy where I encourage them to talk with each other. I basically tell them I think they’ll learn a lot from each other. My big no-no is doing the copy/paste routine and then submitting it as one’s own work. I am very explicit about this. It seems ridiculous that someone would do this given they can talk to each other and look over each other’s shoulders. Apparently it’s too much temptation, however, and some students can’t seem to stop themselves from taking a final step over the boundary into unethical land.
I also blog at Engineer Blogs, home away from home to some of the best engineering blogs.
Many students do not know what copyright infringement is and what is not. Many think if it is on the internet that they can copy and paste it and do not understand that they are breaking the copyright law.
There are three parts to copyright law. Style; when you copy another style so close that you can not tell the original. An Architect sued another Architect for style copyright infringement and won because the copy was the same style. You could not tell one work from the other.
derivative: When you use over 60% of another persons work and add to it or derive your work from the work of another person.
An exact copy of another persons work and pass it off as your own. In school, or public publication can be charged for fraud as well as copyright infringement. I know of students that have been charged by the police for cheating (copyright infringement). The charge was fraud.
Oh no :-( That blows. I agree with Owen, some students don’t seem to know what copyright infringement is, let alone the rules about answering exams, quizzes and homework on their own, if that’s what the class/prof requires.