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Why we still can't stop plagiarism in undergraduate computer science

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Re: Why we still can't stop plagiarism in undergraduate computer science

#61

Post by jkmcf »

bsder wrote: post #52
thatswrong0 wrote: post #11

Here's the easiest solution: stop grading homework Why judge student performance on something that they are using _to learn_? It doesn't make any sense. Every student is basically competing with one another to get the highest GPA possible - if you're going to give them cookie cutter homework with solutions can be easily searched for on the internet _and_ can only bring their GPA down, then they're going to cheat. Pla…

> Here's the easiest solution: stop grading homework Because it's not that simple. These are INTRO classes. For many students, an intro CS class may be the first class they have encountered in their lives in which they finally have to work . So, part of the job of a teacher is to teach the class material but also to teach good studying habits. Without grading homework, the first real feedback that a student is in tro…

Not sure if you missed it, or I'm misunderstanding you, but he wrote:

> Give them homework and "grade it" to give them feedback

which addresses your main point.

Re: Why we still can't stop plagiarism in undergraduate computer science

#62

Post by stale2002 »

nkrisc wrote: post #3

What I find fascinating about this problem is students paying all that money in order to deliberately avoid learning anything.

Then perhaps the world needs to stop caring so much about the assement part of a university.

That would be wonderful if more people were able to focus on the learning, and less on the grades for unrelated subjects that don't matter for your job.

Re: Why we still can't stop plagiarism in undergraduate computer science

#63

Post by Teever »

diabeetusman wrote: post #32
thatswrong0 wrote: post #11

Here's the easiest solution: stop grading homework Why judge student performance on something that they are using _to learn_? It doesn't make any sense. Every student is basically competing with one another to get the highest GPA possible - if you're going to give them cookie cutter homework with solutions can be easily searched for on the internet _and_ can only bring their GPA down, then they're going to cheat. Pla…

Optional homework almost definitely won't get done. Making it count ensures that students would actually do it, which is useful to instructors (what do they need to focus on in class? Is the class understanding the lectures?).

> Optional homework almost definitely won't get done.

Then they fail?

I don't mean to sound glib, but I don't see the issue here.

Students that want to pass will pass, students that don't, won't.

I say this as a student that didn't pass.

Re: Why we still can't stop plagiarism in undergraduate computer science

#64

Post by endangered »

rhombocombus wrote: post #37
wdewind wrote: post #21

Here's an idea: why not make the assignments personal enough that you cannot cheat on them? "But wait, that would require huge amounts of time investment from the professors/TAs" Yes, it's almost as if paying $65k a year for someone to teach you something should result in that person teaching you that thing instead of just checking in to see if you've learned it on your own.

Here's an idea: you try to do that teaching three or four sections and report back how that goes. I am not sure if you have ever taught post secondary classes before, but what you're describing is untenable for someone who wants to not work 12 hour days. It's a nice idea, and I know that I would have loved to do that when I was teaching, but the fact of the matter is it isn't feasible unless you have a squadron of TA…

Then hire more people and stop putting all of the tuition into your sports facilities.

Re: Why we still can't stop plagiarism in undergraduate computer science

#66

Post by Hextinium »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #17
macintux wrote: post #4

I was teaching the lab portion of CS 101 (don't remember the actual course number off-hand) when I discovered that two students had the same remarkable code that shouldn't have worked but did. We were using C, and instead of using globals or parameters, each function declared the same local variables in the same order. The stack, then, remained sufficiently consistent that each function had access to the values it ne…

In other words, we have made studying in groups a crime. Normally, to study a subject you would pose yourself problems and solve them, sometimes with friends. But we insist that homework be done individually, and we insist to assess every last little thing. I think this is a problem in the American university. The other problem is that we have reduced scientific ethics to the subject of plagiarism. But there's other…

This is entirely true, on almost all of my homework I have been specifically instructed to not communicate on more than a ideal level with any code that I write. They could just be missing a semicolon somewhere but I am not supposed to even look at people's code. This leads into group sessions basically everyone being silent and just asking for syntax help. It's dystopian.

Re: Why we still can't stop plagiarism in undergraduate computer science

#67

Post by leetcrew »

emidln wrote: post #46
leetcrew wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a grader, it is already hard enough to keep up with the work that gets generated by thirty students attempting the same weekly homework assignment. i don't know how i could possibly grade thirty different projects in a week, let alone in any fair or reasonable way. i've always wondered why they don't do something like select a random number of students and ask them to explain their work in an interview with the pr…

Add a grading section to each assignment with something like this: --------- Program is expected to maintain this interface over stdin/stdout (or sockets, etc). Students will pass when their program passes the grading/test suite. Test suite can be check ahead of time by uploading binary/zip/tarball to this location using their student id: . Detailed instructions . IIRC, this is what my university did 15 years ago. No…

as a TA, i love when professors set up grading scripts for me, and as a student, i love knowing what grade i will get before turning in the assignment. unfortunately, you need the students to have the basic level of competency where they can actually write code to a testable interface or correctly use print statements to produce good enough output for a script to grade by parsing. in the course i currently TA, neither of these prerequisites are met. many students turn in programs that will not compile and i am expected to give generous partial credit if i can determine that they are "most of the way there".

i also have pedagogical concerns about providing the test script ahead of time. i suspect that it biases low effort students even more in the direction of "guess and check" rather than the ideal (imo) "reason and predict".

all that said, the approach you outlined is probably the best feasible approach for most cs courses.

Re: Why we still can't stop plagiarism in undergraduate computer science

#68

Post by detaro »

tomlagier wrote: post #60
thatswrong0 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still grade the homework (to give both lecturers and students feedback), but just have it not count towards the kids letter grade in the course. If no one is doing it, then you could make the grade for homework pass / fail: did you hand something gradeable in or not?

Hm, then I feel like students might do the minimum passable work. Which, to be fair, is pretty close to optimal for the real world. Maybe that's the trick - make the requirements for passing good enough that the minimum still requires learning and engagement, and then just grade on a straight pass/fail.

That's how a bunch of courses I attended and TAed did it. You needed to beat a specific rating averaged over your homework assignments to be allowed to take the exams. Occasionally caused really good students to fluke the last 1 or 2 assignments since they were sure to have qualified, but generally kept everyone doing them and allowed for failing occasionally (which is useful because students then are less motivated to try and hide their failure, which gives the TAs better feedback about progress and problems)

Re: Why we still can't stop plagiarism in undergraduate computer science

#69

Post by ThePadawan »

rhombocombus wrote: post #37
wdewind wrote: post #21

Here's an idea: why not make the assignments personal enough that you cannot cheat on them? "But wait, that would require huge amounts of time investment from the professors/TAs" Yes, it's almost as if paying $65k a year for someone to teach you something should result in that person teaching you that thing instead of just checking in to see if you've learned it on your own.

Here's an idea: you try to do that teaching three or four sections and report back how that goes. I am not sure if you have ever taught post secondary classes before, but what you're describing is untenable for someone who wants to not work 12 hour days. It's a nice idea, and I know that I would have loved to do that when I was teaching, but the fact of the matter is it isn't feasible unless you have a squadron of TA…

> (...) unless you have a squadron of TA's to help you carry it out, and that's not gonna happen.

Interestingly enough, here's how this worked when I was an undergrad TA:

* The college's central office paid TAs for obligatory undergrad courses (so basically CS101 etc. up until sophomore year) * Advanced courses were funded by the individual chairs and institutes. And would you look at that, suddenly there was a whole less of code submissions auto-checked for plagiarism, and a whole more "talking to the TA to explain your reasoning and problems you encountered". This also served the double purpose that these TAs got to know the students, their likes and dislikes, and led to some easy recruiting for PhD candidates and such.

Re: Why we still can't stop plagiarism in undergraduate computer science

#70

Post by CaptSpify »

rhombocombus wrote: post #37
wdewind wrote: post #21

Here's an idea: why not make the assignments personal enough that you cannot cheat on them? "But wait, that would require huge amounts of time investment from the professors/TAs" Yes, it's almost as if paying $65k a year for someone to teach you something should result in that person teaching you that thing instead of just checking in to see if you've learned it on your own.

Here's an idea: you try to do that teaching three or four sections and report back how that goes. I am not sure if you have ever taught post secondary classes before, but what you're describing is untenable for someone who wants to not work 12 hour days. It's a nice idea, and I know that I would have loved to do that when I was teaching, but the fact of the matter is it isn't feasible unless you have a squadron of TA…

Then schools should hire squadron's of TA's. We pay them enough that they can afford to, but they simply choose not to.
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