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Comment by Mountain_Skies | Hacker News Reader

Students who cheat get an 'Academic Dishonesty' statement added to their transcripts. Professors who accuse students of cheating based on flimsy evidence or broken tools they selected should have 'False Accuser' put next to their name in all university schedules and catalogs, along with their employment record.

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The burden of proof on the professor is so high there that the result would be nobody ever getting accused of cheating, which already happens because the graduate students that do most of the grading are not paid enough to do detective work on short papers. In my uni it works like this: the student is given a 0 for the assignment and if they wish they can go to Academic Affairs to contest it and get a formal review process. Most do not escalate it because this is a rare event for someone who is cheating their way through undergrad and can be seen as a cost of doing business.

Evidently it is not.

key word being "there", in your scenario the process is entirely in the favor of cheaters.

Yes. There's a power imbalance without accountability. Of course they're going to abuse it. This professor and his university are both clearly incompetent. Students shouldn't even have to defend themselves against a cheating accusation. Either prove it or assume it didn't happen.

I used to be a teacher and even when I strongly suspected a student of cheating, if I couldn't prove it, I wouldn't even mention it to them or anyone else. Weak evidence doesn't mean partial guilt.

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