Searching Github for assignments is pretty easy, but I wonder how they'd be able to detect duplicates other then when every source is 100% equal to another student's.
Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered
21–30 of 182 posts
Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered
#22I have to wonder if those posting solutions on github are actually doing it in an effort to cheat. I made a similar mistake recently with a project I completed in my computer architecture course. When the professor contacted me about it, it seemed obvious. But at the time, all I was thinking about was "yay, public code!" Obviously, I took it down right away. I wonder how many people are doing the same thing. Cheating…
If it's your work, you own the copyright, and it's totally within your rights to make it publicly available.
And it's within their rights to expel you from the course.
Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered
#23The certificates, IMHO, are meaningless in the context of these online courses. Considering this, I find the measure exaggerated. I use github as a central place to store almost everything I write outside work, so it comes pretty natural for me to version code for problems I've been working on there. Disclaimer: I'm not involved in the Scala course, so I don't know how the actual assigments were structured.
Certificates and other records from this and Robert Sedgewick's algorithms course (maybe others) can be shared with employers through Coursera's placement service. Not entirely meaningless.
Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered
#24I wonder how much work it is to monitor the students, it must be hard to tell if there's cheating, assuming the published solution is well written and tought. If they have to look at past submissions to detect sudden peaks in grades it's got to be a burden.
Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's your work, you own the copyright, and it's totally within your rights to make it publicly available.
Sure, but if it's against school policy, the school has the right to expel you. Coursera is not taking the public code down, the owner is, at the coercion of the school. The student is making a value decision: continue the course or take my code down. If you can't play by the rules, you can't be in the game. I think there's a unique opportunity for GitHub here. They could give an educational license to verified stude…
When the semester ends, you've got a week to grab your code before it goes public, like a free account.
I suspect this would catch on better if the repos were destroyed or stayed private. Professors reuse assignments year after year and wouldn't be too happy about public solutions to all their past assignments.
Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered
#26Shame on the cheaters, but I don't see how they're hurting anyone but themselves.
In the spirit of the Platonic ideal of the Academy it seems beneficial to freely share and exchange ideas.
Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's your work, you own the copyright, and it's totally within your rights to make it publicly available.
Sure, but if it's against school policy, the school has the right to expel you. Coursera is not taking the public code down, the owner is, at the coercion of the school. The student is making a value decision: continue the course or take my code down. If you can't play by the rules, you can't be in the game. I think there's a unique opportunity for GitHub here. They could give an educational license to verified stude…
Github already offers free micro plan (5 private repos) for verified students. Unlimited private repos is a rather big hammer and might attract abuse.
edit for link: https://github.com/edu
Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered
#28If it's this easy to "cheat" on these assignments, then maybe the professors should sit down and think about how to properly craft assignments. It's clear to me that traditional assignment grading will not work in an online/anonymous environment - appealing to a code of honor will not help if they want the certificate of completion to actually hold meaning.
I don't have any actual suggestions other then when I was in school the assignments were worth about 10-15% of our final grade because of this very reason (shared solutions). Actual knowledge was tested in other ways: presentations, quizzes, exams, etc.
Revoking the completion certificate for everyone else is NOT a way to build trust with the community at large - use those large academic brains and come up with a better solution.
Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered
#29The certificates, IMHO, are meaningless in the context of these online courses. Considering this, I find the measure exaggerated. I use github as a central place to store almost everything I write outside work, so it comes pretty natural for me to version code for problems I've been working on there. Disclaimer: I'm not involved in the Scala course, so I don't know how the actual assigments were structured.
Coursera will ultimately try and leverage their courses as a hiring mechanism. I'm participating in the course, and have taken a prior course as well. After sigining up you will receive an email from coursera asking your permission to share course results with employers.
If they can't use the course certificate as a signal mechanism then there will be no incentive for employers to partner with them
Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's your work, you own the copyright, and it's totally within your rights to make it publicly available.
Sure, but if it's against school policy, the school has the right to expel you. Coursera is not taking the public code down, the owner is, at the coercion of the school. The student is making a value decision: continue the course or take my code down. If you can't play by the rules, you can't be in the game. I think there's a unique opportunity for GitHub here. They could give an educational license to verified stude…
BitBucket offers free private repos.
Edit- Apparently BitBucket launched a new version of their site only moments after sharing this link. Looks great!