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You're making it too abstract. The professor's actions are hilarious and fair game by any measure. Bravo, well played. It's such a good idea that I'm surprised its not already commonplace.

As for consequences, thats up to university policy

> I am in discussion with my Chair about exactly what response is appropriate for these students, but a zero on the final is the bare minimum, and an F in the class is likely for some, if not all of those who cheated.

> You're making it too abstract.

A _philosophy professor_ asked a question about _ethics_.

"Fair game" maybe? But we're talking about ethics.

The professor intentionally taught students incorrect information when they were seeking out resources to help them learn the material.

Maybe a student spent 2 days studying those incorrect answers. I don't know if there have been studies on this, but I suspect it's much more difficult to unlearn false information one has absorbed than it is to learn the correct information in the first place.

In other words, the professor experimented on his students in a way that shows he's more interested in determining whether or not they were "cheating" (by his definition) than he is in helping them learn the material in a substantive way, and assessing whether he has adequately taught them.

Any student failing the exam because they studied the poisoned material is just a testament to how much he failed as a teacher.

> The professor intentionally taught students incorrect information when they were seeking out resources to help them learn the material.

No, that is not true. That's your narrative.

> Maybe a student spent 2 days studying those incorrect answers. I don't know if there have been studies on this, but I suspect it's much more difficult to unlearn false information one has absorbed than it is to learn the correct information in the first place.

Furthering of your narrative, and appeal to authority even though the authority is lacking.

> In other words, the professor experimented on his students in a way that shows he's more interested in determining whether or not they were "cheating" (by his definition) than he is in helping them learn the material in a substantive way, and assessing whether he has adequately taught them.

Also, narrative building.

> Any student failing the exam because they studied the poisoned material is just a testament to how much he failed as a teacher.

And here is the outcome of your narrative, you've come to the conclusion that students cheating is actually a failure of the teacher - why? If students cheating was the failure of the teacher, why were other students completely capable of learning the material from lecture and supplemental material? Surely, the number of students failing the course would be 100% if the teacher failed to teach.

We know that's not the case, so your premise is bunk from the get go.

Maybe you could make the argument that the teacher is not good at teaching, or poorly taught their students, but then you'd need to find evidence that the other students who did not cheat had to go through alternative methods to learn/do well in the course. Unless you're the student in the classroom, or the teacher roleplaying in the comments here, I don't think you have that evidence.

So I'll make a value judgement here and say that you're trolling by the canonical sense of the phrase.

Professor had provided class lectures, study guides, textbooks, past homeworks and many other materials. They were all correct, and properly endorsed by professor.

The policy explicitly says "that looking at other tests without the instructor’s permission counts as cheating". Students who ignored _all_ professor-provided materials and went to cheating websites to study answers that are "obviously wrong to anyone who had paid attention in class" got what they deserve.

> But does the professor have a deontological obligation to catch cheating, and to make a good-faith effort to have fair outcomes in which students who studied and understood the material receive better grades than cheaters?

Most courses are either graded on a curve or the material is adjusted in difficulty to target a certain level of challenge.

When cheaters come in and destroy that curve and inject false signal into the difficulty feedback loop, the non-cheaters suffer from increased difficulty.

So yes, there is some obligation to keep the playing field fair and accurate.

Given that grades can have an impact on real-world outcomes (e.g. admission to a desired graduate program) then it’s possible that allowing cheating can have broad impacts beyond the students. Imagine if you took some 4.0GPA students under the assumption that they actually learned what they claim, then discover that they have no idea what they’re doing because they cheated the whole way.

Also, the mind boggles at the suggestion that catching cheaters is bad because they might face some consequences for their dishonesty.

> Most courses are either graded on a curve or the material is adjusted in difficulty to target a certain level of challenge.

Thankfully not the case where I went to university. The bar was clearly set in the first lecture: If your overall score is 90+%, you get an A. 80-90%, a B, and so on. Doesn't matter what your peers do.

University is (or should be) about learning, not about competition with peers.

When I read the article, my mind was clear: He is not the unethical one. That's assuming no curve. If he is curving, I'm all for any method that messes up the curve, because curves are (generally) a bad idea.

The person you responded to accounts for uncurved classes in their argument, that cheaters in uncurved classes "inject false signal into the difficulty feedback loop".

If the average assignment grades are very high the professor will be inclined to make the assignments more challenging. Cheating disrupts the professor's ability to accurately determine how well their students are grasping the material and adjust accordingly.

> The person you responded to accounts for uncurved classes in their argument, that cheaters in uncurved classes "inject false signal into the difficulty feedback loop".

We both understood the comment very differently. The "inject false signal" is for curved classes. When you have a curve, your grade depends on how well your peers do. If they are cheating and you are not, you are unfairly at risk for a lower grade. In an uncurved class, your grade is independent of whether your peers cheated or not.

> The person you responded to accounts for uncurved classes in their argument, that cheaters in uncurved classes "inject false signal into the difficulty feedback loop". The person you responded to accounts for uncurved classes in their argument, that cheaters in uncurved classes "inject false signal into the difficulty feedback loop".

Ah, I see the confusion. For me, this is just "curving by proxy". By uncurved, I meant: The professor decides what students should learn and be able to do with the material, and designs the exam accordingly. If almost everyone gets an A, then it means almost everyone learned the material adequately. Most of my professors did not modify the difficulty of the course/exams/HW based on how well the students did.

The exceptions were when the whole class did poorly and no one would have gotten better than a C - then they adjusted to ensure some people got at least a B - but usually not based on a distribution. I have taken at least two courses where no one was granted an A, because the professor felt he had made fair exams, and no one met the bar he deemed to be an A.

>The exceptions were when the whole class did poorly and no one would have gotten better than a C - then they adjusted to ensure some people got at least a B - but usually not based on a distribution.

See, that illustrates the problem. If cheating pushes grades up, then the difficulty won't be adjusted, even if no-one would actually have gotten high grades if it wasn't for cheating. The professor might think the test was fine because at least some people got Bs, but what if all those people cheated?

> Imagine if you took some 4.0GPA students under the assumption that they actually learned what they claim

I'm going to stop you right here, my friend. I don't think I or anyone else is going to take on a wet-behind-the-ears new grad and actually expect any substantial amount of competence or knowledge out of them for a real world endeavor. I pissed away a lot of valuable time and effort getting a 3.8 GPA, and it was no help at all in the real world. Hiring managers didn't even remember what it meant.

Once I started my first real tech job after college, it turned out that being the top dumb kid out of a group of dumb kids didn't have any effect on how little I knew about getting things done. I actually learned more and more relevant skills from a couple of years of part time web programming in high school than I did from 4 years in a well-respected university

1. Absolute good is problematic even for philosophers. Under consequentialist framework, catching cheaters would allow others or yourself to reeducate them, causing a lot of social repercussions, especially if the test contained safety instruction. The consequences of cheating are very complex, and ones of fostering cheating behavior even more so.

2. It is, in as much as you believe AI should provide accurate answers to others or force them to think for themselves instead. The professor is honest in deontological point of view in that they're not lying to a person, but are lying in general. Depending on deontology in question this may or may not be allowed.

I feel like you're missing something basic. The professor classifies this as a "cheating site", and his entire article assumes this classification, but the site portrays itself as a study aid. If we skip the editorializing, what the professor actually did was seed misinformation on the Internet to see who would fall for it.

Would you feel differently if he had edited the Wikipedia page for his subject to see which students used it as a study aid?

The equation of "you found this info on the Internet instead of in the approved course material and therefore you're cheating" doesn't seem completely solid to me.

The pirate bay might describe itself as a software sharing website, it’s kind of a moot point what they describe themselves as in that sense.

The students are still responsible for what they take in outside of the materials provided. Wikipedia is even at the best of times not always correct. I see lot of people waving the responsibility of students away.

The students took a chance, knowing fully well what the site is and does, and they got burned. Own it and take the burn.

Reading a copy of a previous test is not considered cheating.

If the site had copies of upcoming tests that would be cheating. But previous tests might as well be considered public knowledge.

I honestly didn’t know it was a cheating site. I use it with my grade school kids to help them, find novel exercises on the topics they’re working on, etc.

I can’t be the only one who uses it as the resource it presents itself to be.

Agreed, also college kids are trained to study old tests to get into college. SAT prep and AP test prep is basically all previous test review.

I think it somewhat depends on how the test was presented on the site. Was it presented as a previous test or was it presented as "top secret" upcoming test? I remember a few college tests that had questions straight from the book example questions. Is it cheating that I remembered them?