Cheating in online classes

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Kizmet, Nov 5, 2015.

Loading...
  1. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  2. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    The author undermines his argument in the very first sentence.
     
  3. sideman

    sideman Well Known Member

    You betcha. Once a cheat, always a cheater. And it doesn't matter whether it's BM or online. I remember my first year at a BM university; 300 plus students taking the same exam and no one making sure that the integrity of the finals were not compromised. So now we have a columnist, an admitted cheat, writing about the huge potential for cheating on online courses. So who's calling the kettle black?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 6, 2015
  4. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    While it is true that the author admits to being a cheater that impacts credibility not the cogency of his argument.

    What does impact the cogency of his argument is the fact that cheating existed well before online study was an option. The University of Scranton often used proctors for final exams (who were not the course instructors) and never, while I was there, checked ID. Nor was attendance taken. So it would have been entirely too easy for a person to simply fill out an extra blue book with another name on it. Unlike those days, however, we have software to detect plagiarism and third party proctoring services that have some pretty sophisticated authentication measures. Few of these checks, either online or in-person, can prevent a person from straight up outsourcing their coursework. I, again, cite this guy as proof.

    If a person is willing to take my online course for $1,000, chances are, they were willing to take my in-person class for a fee as well. The only difference is that now they attract much less attention if they opt to attend that class in their underwear.
     
  5. sideman

    sideman Well Known Member

    Nod. That's right. If you read the entire writing he does present a compelling argument.
     
  6. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    It reminds me of that "Catch me if you can" guy who was the forger and later became a consultant to the FBI on identity theft and related issues.
     
  7. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    $1,225.15

    That's probably about what the adjunct is getting to teach that section. I guess it must be legal, the student assumes a lot of risk doing this. Wow.
     
  8. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    This part cracked me up
    "But the ability to get a degree by opening a checkbook instead of a textbook does, at a minimum, complicate efforts to flatten the education-access pyramid."

    Translation: when I was in school we cheated, but we wrote our crib notes by hand and snuck em in on our shoes dab-gummet! And we were thankful! These young whipper snappers are in there just writin' checks??? That's not real cheatin! What kind of integrity does your degree have when you can't even cheat like a real student?!
     
  9. sideman

    sideman Well Known Member

    Great flick. I also liked "Back To School" with Rodney Dangerfield playing the rich dad that went back to college with his undergrad son. He had all of his employees doing his homework (i.e. his accountant doing his accounting homework, etc.). And if you like Dangerfield he was hilarious.
     
  10. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    That was my take on it as well. The author seems unconcerned with how "traditional" cheating affects the education-access pyramid because this "new" type of cheating is supposedly much easier.
     
  11. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    Yeah but Neuhaus, did you read it with my cool redneck accent playing in your head? :icon16:
     
  12. davefranco

    davefranco New Member

    This article is misleading. Cheating is not as rampant as this article would have you believe and colleges are not as clueless as this article would have you believe.
     
  13. nyvrem

    nyvrem Active Member

    plot twist - the 'helpers' who are doing the assignments and exams for the students are the TAs.
     
  14. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I certainly agree with the former, especially since the research on this by Stuber-McEwen, Wiseley, and Hoggatt supports it:

    Point, Click, and Cheat: Frequency and Type of Academic Dishonesty in the Virtual Classroom

    I'm not so sure about the latter. Even now too many decision makers at traditional colleges and universities are woefully clueless about distance learning.
     
  15. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    Exactly- if you've never even taken a DL course, you have very little insight or intuition about how you could cheat. Even if "colleges" were not clueless, let's get specific here- it's on the instructor/professor's shoulders to uncover. I taught college 18 years and never once attended any kind of training, inservice, or workshop teaching me how to identify a cheater- I had to rely on my own instincts. A few years back, someone here posted a link to youtube - how students cheat - or something like that, and most of those tricks blew my mind. Clearly, students probably cheated in my classes, because in all that time, I can only remember 1 instance of cheating. Based on what we know, I was duped, as opposed to the students just not being cheaters.
     
  16. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  17. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  18. sideman

    sideman Well Known Member

    As a former Buckeye (meaning I was born there, lived there, but never attended The Ohio State University) I am saddened by this report. It seems like ethics classes are not effective and it just shows how rampant cheating is. And students just seem to look at it as---"It's okay, as long as you don't get caught".
     
  19. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Ethics classes, at least the ones I took, are academic courses on the topic of ethics. They aren't how-to courses in not cheating. As you study ethics you begin finding quite the spectrum of ethical theories. And you study them all. I was required to take intro to Philosophy and Ethics at Scranton. Nothing contained in the ethics course even remotely addressed cheating. Only a very small segment of the class was even devoted to the Catholic take on Ethics.

    I also took Logic and found it filled with business and polisci majors who were told that the course would boost their LSAT and GMAT scores. Most of them walked away disappointed. At least one guy publicly berated the professor as he stormed out because the professor refused to alter the course to basically be an LSAT logic games prep.

    Having a good solid foundation in Ethics is good. It helps you to really stop seeing the world in black and white. But there is no one who is going to take the course and say "Damn, cheating and plagiarism is wrong."
     
  20. sideman

    sideman Well Known Member

    Ok. I see your logic. But we also need to get to an end goal which in this case you show in your last statement. Yes I've taken ethics courses and hey I've taken a philosophy course or two and yes I've learned to think in shades of grey and see both sides of the coin. But cheating is not tolerable and so far higher education has floundered in it's approach to address this matter.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 8, 2016

Share This Page