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Comment by ajsnigrutin | Hacker News Reader

So... bring back the "old school" exams, pens, papers, large classroom, one professor, 2, 3 TAs walking around, no phones or computers, only paper and pen, and since it's university level, memorizing stuff is stupid, so either let them have books/notes or atleast a piece of paper (or more) with formulas or whatever is needed (because let's be fair, "cheat sheets" will always be a posibility, and even the best doctors and engineers google stuff all the time).

Some minimal cheating is still possible, but otherwise, it's a lot better than the current online situation.

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Doesn’t matter. I saw 12 students submit the same binary for an assignment and 0 failed the class, let alone were expelled as the “academic integrity policy” would imply.

International students are cash cows, and college is a joke.

So, it's not the "billion dollar industry"'s fault, but colleges that are becoming more of a joke than ever. There is a way to stop (atleast most of) the cheating, but if colleges are not interested in that, why shame and try to prevent people monetizing the thing colleges themselves allow?

It’s a billion(s) dollar industry at fault for sure, but perhaps not the one the article mentions.

I don’t see college changing any time soon. I work with people that still think certain schools are “great schools” implying they produce knowledgeable graduates. Even seconds after an interview ends in flames because a graduate doesn’t know how to touch a computer.

I teach at a college. I stopped caring about cheating a while back. It’s not worth the hassle of reporting a student who cheats and the college needs students. College is being treated as a business and the client is the student.

Please don't contribute to the problem. If you catch them cheating, get them thrown out of the university.

At my salary? Not worth the trouble. Especially since no one in the chain of command wants to deal with it and nothing of real consequence will happen. The problem is far greater than me and it’s not worth it to try to care.

You're not teaching your students well if you teach them cheating is rewarded. Not to mention the other students who are forced to learn that cheating is rewarded by the other students cheating and must cheat to compete. IMO you shouldn't even be a teacher if that's your opinion.

I don’t grade on a curve. Each person’s grade is independent of each other student. There is no competition for grades as such. Me sucking as a teacher is a different matter.

My question to you. Given what I implied about pay and what I said about apathy of my bosses on this issue what makes you think you’d respond differently than me after 25 years in the system?

A lot depends on the school I'm sure. I failed a student for plagiarism once and there was no hassle, but it was a pretty big research university and 15 years ago.

Dealing with football and basketball coaches whose players were failing, on the other hand, was absurd.

I don’t blame you. I just wish all parties involved could be honest.

Don’t make me sit through an hour long academic integrity presentation if everyone can cheat and there are no consequences.

It would save students a lot of time to just admit they would purchase homework solutions. Give them passing grades, and then there’s less grading work for the TA to boot. Kabuki theater college is ridiculous.

I don’t advertise that I don’t care about cheating to the students and I don’t make them sit through a presentation either. The problem is that we need tuition dollars so admin isn’t going to expel someone except in an extreme situation. I need a job which means I need students to want to enroll in my classes so I don’t want a reputation of being a hard ass. Everyone just pretends. Students pretend to not cheat, admin pretends to care about standards, and I pretend to care about cheating.

I don’t give quizzes or graded assignments anymore. I just give a few tests because, well, as you said, Kabuki theater college is ridiculous.

By ignoring cheaters, you're penalizing honest students, who suffer grade deflation as a result. Even if you don't grade on a curve, and there is no resulting grade deflation, the honest students will have devoted significantly more effort for the same grade. Either way, only the honest suffer. Is that an ideal outcome?

But an individual teacher gains nothing for reporting cheaters, even though reporting and handling the aftermath is a huge amount of work.

It's fine to have exams on computers, as long as they're university-owned computers in a lab and not, say, the students' personal laptops at home.

which member of the covid-stricken workforce is going to provide, administer and police that? and how well?

students would just remotely connect to their laptops at home

> students would just remotely connect to their laptops at home

The point of requiring university-owned lab computers is that it'd be feasible to lock them down to prevent this sort of thing.

as above

You forget a lot of colleges are businesses. That stuff is just too expensive, they won't do it. Also, failing too many students looks bad as well, so they won't enforce anything too seriously.

Unfortunately COVID stopped this for a while, but agree this is the only way to stop this kind of behavior.

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