Cheating at University.

[Jason14h]

I often thought students should not be allowed to campaign profs in their office for better marks.

I spent more time campaigning then studying!

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by troutman

I often thought students should not be allowed to campaign profs in their office for better marks.

That always annoyed me as well.

[ok, ok,....I get it]

cheating is fine, just don't let your girlfriend find out.

[onetwo_threefour]

Cheating in university is pathetic . Do the work or fail.

For premeditated, I'd say a first year should fail the course, beyond that there should be a minimum of fail the semester and half year holiday for upper years.

[Imported_Aussie]

usually students just get the F for that assignment/exam (or teh whole class) and are on probation for a first time offence when they show contrition. its the second offence when they get suspended/expelled

i have heard of a few funny cases, the classic is the notes on the inside of the calculator in an exam, or "group work" on individual assignments.

most people who get caught "play the game", they admit how bad a person they were and how it will never happen again, and they take the F and let it go

[mots]

I dont know, im all for cheating. You actually learn a LOT creating your cheatsheets. In majority of classes at the u, after a year you dont remember 99% of it. So that 1% you do remember you might actually remember cuz you had it scribbled on your ankle as an acronym you had to remember.

It's almost a more efficient way of studying. Why spend 8 hours remembering every acronym in the book, when you can read a couple times in an hour, and write the rest on your cheat sheet in half hour, and do better on the exam. Same results but way less time spend, so you can actually spend your time on stuff you like doing.

Well this rule might nor apply to medicine, and such fields, but really how many graduates of Business schools now remember the Time Value of Money formule off by heart. You need to identify the idea, but the formula can be easily found on the web or in your books. Even Einstein said that you dont need to memorize anything you can look up in a book

[Russic]

Considering how often it is pounded into your head that cheating is strictly prohibited at that level, I'd fail the student in the course immediately. Since it was as pre-meditated as it was, I'd go to the higher ups and let them determine if further action is necessary.

[HelloHockeyFans]

I don't know what it's like in other programs, but when I was in Engineering, the cheating was absolutely ridiculous. Rows of people seated strategically to get a good view of other people's work.

It always pissed me off because I knew that these idiots did zero work and would still end up passing the exam, albeit most of the time with worst marks than those who actually put in the effort.

Another thing that pissed me off when I was in school were the freaking copying of assignments. Some of these assignments took 8-10 hours to do and you'd get groups of asshats who get together at the start of the year and agree to split up the assignments for the rest of the year so each person only does one.

Originally Posted by troutman

I often thought students should not be allowed to campaign profs in their office for better marks.

Totally agree with this. The inevitable campaign to the professor's office after an exam to whine and cry for extra partial marks was a regular occurance. If the error is legitimate, then fine... but if you need to go in after every exam, sit there and haggle for an extra 2-3 marks, you have bigger issues. A few times, there were legitimate errors in my exams that could have been resolved but lining up for an hour when the office hours were only scheduled for an hour turned me away.

Uggh, glad I'm out of school.

[HelloHockeyFans]

Oh yeah, and since I didn't really answer the OP... if I were to have the authority, I'd say if you're caught cheating once - copying of assignments included, although this is much harder to prove - you get a zero on whatever it is that you cheated on, the incident gets noted on your permanent file, but hidden from your transcript. In other words, if you have any ambitions for Master's programs after your Undergrad... you better not cheat, 'cause the one offense will show up. This includes those who lend their work to others or are active in the cheating process by allowing others to copy.

Second offenders are booted from their program (not from the institution) and dinged with a permanent record on their transcript for the offence.

If you're caught cheating ever again in the same institution, you're out. Good luck getting in any where else.

[simonsays]

Anything less than an insta-fail (in the course, not the test) and you pretty much have to come to terms with the fact that you aren't providing a post secondary education, you're selling post secondary degrees.

[HelloHockeyFans]

Here's an old topic on CP about cheating: http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthr...light=cheating

[Phanuthier]

I would report it, definitely. 1st year or 4th year (4th year is worse), if you came out of high school, you know better.

[Weiser Wonder]

Reminds of a story. I was taking an upper-division history class and one requirement of the class was a paper. When the day came for papers to be returned, the prof says 8 people plagiarized their papers. The way he handled it was if they came in and admitted they plagiarized he wouldn't report them to the Dean. Around 15 came in.

[albertGQ]

Originally Posted by troutman

I often thought students should not be allowed to campaign profs in their office for better marks.

But then how would all those old male profs ever get laid?

[Sainters7]

I was in a class once when a dude got busted with a cheat sheet and the prof made him hand in his test and get out. You should've heard the class cat-callin him on his way out haha, that must've sucked.

I've seen some pretty creative cheating since I got to University. During a final I noticed one guy sitting in front of me had a bad cold, he was constantly blowing his nose. One time I happened to get a glimpse of him doing it. He was actually faking blowing his nose, he had written some notes on the Kleenex and would look at it for a couple seconds before bringing it to his nose and pretending to blow.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Weiser Wonder

Reminds of a story. I was taking an upper-division history class and one requirement of the class was a paper. When the day came for papers to be returned, the prof says 8 people plagiarized their papers. The way he handled it was if they came in and admitted they plagiarized he wouldn't report them to the Dean. Around 15 came in.

That's classic! I had the same thing happen to me in a first year English class at Iowa--I only knew about one cheater, but broadcast an announcement to the whole class--and 4 people came to me and confessed.

Cheating is a huge problem at Universities, actually--supposedly something like a third of student papers contain at least some improperly cited material--which for those of us that teach is a very scary proposition. I used to think my assignments were so unique that students couldn't plagiarize them, but I've long since stopped kidding myself.

As for the OP--throw the book at him. Other students are busting their asses, this guy wanted a free ride. Especially if he wants to go to grad school. No grad school will take him with this on his record, and that's as it should be.

[FurnaceFace]

I admit to some plagurization in University. 1st year English, we all had to take it and it was always a hell class. Needed good marks to get into the 2nd year program so my second semester I borrowed a girl's essay that she wrote the semester before on the same novel. I rewrote it in my voice but the concepts were the same. She got 84, I got 84.

I had a micro-econ final that I knew nothing about. I did the classic "if you don't know the answer go onto the next question". I got to the last page, flipped it over, and started again with a blank exam. I had no idea what I was doing and only managed to write some stuff down because I could see what the guy in front of me was doing. It still didn't help, I failed wonderfully with a 42.(...and then doubled my mark in the summer when I took it again.)

I guess it depends on the type of cheating with me as face it, in the real world we borrow and reuse other people's work all the time. Most of the time it is "public domain" which I don't think is a problem. Using copywritten work and treating it as your own is a different matter. Needing notes on how a formula goes together isn't as big a deal to me as I think in most cases we don't have to pull that stuff out of memory in the real world and if you understand how to apply the formula or the number generated that's the key learning piece. I do recognize there are exceptions to this and in certain cases knowing the formula or whatever will save lives.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by FurnaceFace

I had a micro-econ final that I knew nothing about. I did the classic "if you don't know the answer go onto the next question". I got to the last page, flipped it over, and started again with a blank exam.

I've been there before. Isn't that the worst feeling in the world?

The only thing going through my head was "Ahhhh ****! I am getting SOOO drunk after this!"

[Rathji]

I almost cheated in one quiz first year. I needed to memorize some table, so I had an acronym that I had worked out and when I went to write it on the desk before the quiz I realized I already knew it well enough that I didn't have to.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by albertGQ

But then how would all those old male profs ever get laid?

At my faculty in UBC, the profs were not allowed to close their doors for this reason.