I’ve just found out that one, and possibly more, student/s in one of my courses has plagiarized on a recent assignment. I have only heard about the evidence second-hand, from my TA, so I still have to go through an assessment process to determine if there is cause for making a claim against one or more of my students. Needless to say, I’m angry, disappointed and sad. In that spirit, here’s UCF Professor Richard Quinn responding to a much larger-scale cheating problem in his management class:
Amazingly, he negotiated a deal so that all students could re-take the exam and students who cheated and come forward can receive the grade they earn, provided they complete a 4-hour ethics class. He also will no longer use test banks to compose exams, and has alerted other faculty that the test banks have been compromised. Kottke reports that after Quinn gave this speech, over 200 students confessed.
whatisthewhat 
Wow. Jenn, I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. It’s very painful, as I’ve experienced but thankfully not that often.
The video is extraordinary – the degree of emotion in his voice, the frankness of the talk – I really appreciated it. That said, I don’t like his “deal” since I think it is too light on the perpetrators, who knew full well what they were up to.
It’s hard to imagine being in his situation. If the penalty for cheating is expulsion, is it reasonable to expel 200 students? If not, does this encourage students to conspire in great numbers to cheat?
Ugh. Saw the title of the post and thought, “This is going to be good. WITW riffing on Joey Greco, The Politics of Authenticity…was he REALLY stabbed on Cheaters (of course). More Importantly, and closer to home, how to Think Through ESPN’s Hip Hop Aerobics.” But it is just a post about cheating. OK.
And I bet my student is disappointed I wrote an assignment that forced them to cheat.
I admit have cheated in some ocassion for example when faculty of sociology agrees about to put exams condensed in one week, one and even two exams by day. Cheating sometimes is simply a survival strategy in front the cruel system of evaluation in where students are understood like robots who live for university tasks.
Cheating is not a survival strategy. Cutting off your arm when trapped in the wilderness under a rock is a survival strategy. Cheating is an act of desperation. The system of evaluation is not cruel, nor is the scheduling of exams. Expecting children to weave blankets 10 hours a day is cruel. And expecting students to take exams does not treat them “like robots” but is rather a sign of treating them like students, that is, those who have joined a university community for the purpose of gaining knowledge and earning a credential. It is the work environments you will be compelled into were you to cheat or fail your exams that will treat you like a robot. Passing responsibility to others for the choices you make is a sign of a distorted reality.
To believe that cheating is a personal choice also is a sign of distortion. There are a lot of hypothesis whereby your students had cheated beyond an idea like “whait, why study? I just will cheat, ha ha, I’m a fucking genius!”. So, maybe will be convenient make some autocriticism, from the professor to evaluative system.
Whew, someone was up early with the babblefish. Dutch, French, and Chinese-simp were involved. Still, nothing about Joey Greco!