Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered

pastebin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 182 posts

Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered

#151

Post by eranation »

sampo wrote: post #132
eranation wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very unlikely, similar code? yes, exact duplicate? there are so many ways to solve it, that statistically it's not that likely, and if so, it will be on 1 answer, not all of them.

If you have, for example class Rational(x: Int, y: Int) { def numer = x def denom = Y } and then homework is to implement def less(that: Rational) = ??? then you're gonna get 15 000 people answering with def less(that: Rational) = numer * that.denom and another 15 000 with def less(that: Rational) = numer * that.denom and maybe a couple thousand with something like def less(that: Rational) = numer*that.denom (This ex…

yes, but none of them are that trivial... and if they were, then cheating wouldn't make much sense. e.g. the coin change algorithm, I'm sure the distribution of answers was quite unique for anyone who tried solving it alone. same for even simple things like the pascal triangle.

But it's a moot argument as we need to do a real research (or ask coursera / Martin Odersky for the data, which I'm sure HN community will be happy to run some data mining on)

Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered

#152

Post by ipince »

prophetjohn wrote: post #5

I 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…

I (unknowingly) posted my code for the class on Github. As you point out, I did it with the "yay public code" mindset, not thinking about cheating at all. I'm taking it down right now and apologizing to the Coursera staff.

Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered

#155

Post by blaines »

SystemOut wrote: post #90
blaines wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible students (ignorantly) made their work public because they were proud of their accomplishments. I've done that once or twice under the assumption the course would change for other classes, if only slightly. That being said, the onus is on the student to make sure they aren't submitting someone's work as their own. I'm not really sure if they understood what they were doing was serious (as in if Coursera…

They definitely showed the honor code the first time I went into this class as well as a different class I took on modeling. I think the expelling is totally fine. Martin and his team put a lot of time into this, developing the course and the tools to automate grading and if someone is going to put this up publicly and not take it down they should just boot them from the course. I don't understand why anyone would ac…

Quick follow up... They might have changed the system since I took a class last, I don't know. So I decided to sign up for a class and BAM!

There it is, really obvious too.

https://twitter.com/blaines/status/255762571704020992/photo/...

Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered

#156

Post by Groxx »

PeterBB wrote: post #136
think-large wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but that is mostly because I already have a 4 year degree in Engineering and I'm assuming you do too. There is a problem in the fact that many people cannot afford that degree because their parents can't afford it (or the loans that they'd need). Cheating degrades the quality of education at any level. Cheaters are trying to get accreditation when they shouldn't. While Cheating is all over in educat…

> Cheating degrades the quality of education at any level. Not in the least! You can argue that it degrades the prestige or something like that, but the education remains the same.

I would argue it hurts after the cheating, though possibly not precisely when it occurs. Later courses, things that build on what was cheated, that kind of thing. Time (and money, and happiness) must be spent to deal with people who aren't prepared, degrading the quality of what the legitimate ones receive, and the educator's time.

Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered

#157

Post by Groxx »

blaines wrote: post #117
ramblerman wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ok program scala" Yeah that sounds like a great interview. How long do you let them go, half an hour, a day? Do you think you can adequately judge someones abilities like this?

Who said interview? You did.

Your format implies more formality than a normal conversation - I assumed you meant it in terms of an interview too, and if not that, I'm not sure what you were aiming for. I don't see conversations like that outside technical interviews.

Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered

#158

Post by tokenadult »

I see several comments on this submission relate the issue of cheating in a Coursera course to the issue of presenting a false credential to an employer when seeking a job. People seeking jobs as programmers had better be ready to do a programming sample under conditions controlled by the hiring company to prevent cheating. The reason to be ready for that is that work-sample tests are the best validated procedure for hiring workers for jobs in general, and any company that takes a scientific approach to hiring will make work-sample tests a big part of its hiring procedures.

The long story about why companies should use work-sample tests to hire job applicants, including programmers, can be found in the online FAQ I post from time to time here on HN, last posted five days ago.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543

Of course, because some (many?) people cheat, work-sample tests work best if the companies using them make sure that cheating is not possible during the test. If you want to get a job at a company that doesn't hire cheats or fakers, be ready to show what you know in a work-sample test.

Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered

#159

Post by namank »

jopt wrote: post #57
namank wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, thats harsh. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone slips. Making mistakes is an integral part of iterating towards the better.

That's just crazy. Whether or not cheaters should be exposed, I hope that mistakes bit is not your general policy for anything.

Well, it sort of becomes your policy when you stay out of the comfort zone long enough.

Re: Coursera's Functional Programming - Cheating Discovered

#160

Post by namank »

jellicle wrote: post #110
nicksergeant wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Cheating" is not "making a mistake".

Making categorical declarations about what is in actuality an extraordinarily large range of grey areas is not useful to discussion.

I beg to differ. Simply based on the number of students and therefore the degree of diversity seen in a Coursera class, if nothing else.
Post reply on HN