Thursday, July 8, 2010

Colleges Aim to Cut Cheating by Outwitting Students

Taking anti-cheating measures very seriously, several universities implemented high and low tech improvements to thwart students attempting to get an unfair advantage on assignments and tests ("To Stop Cheats, Colleges Learn Their Trickery"- The New York Times July 5, 2010). The University of Central Florida's testing center recessed their computer monitors to prevent photography of test questions on the screen and uses cameras to monitor student activities. Turnitin.com reports that students try various tricks to outwit the plagiarism identification tool, but schemes such as substituting foreign letters similar to English letters don't work. The story notes that academic integrity tutorials do seem to help cut plagiarism, since they help students understand the acceptable use and citation of information.

Discussion Questions:
  1. Do you think campuses should use cameras to monitor testing centers? Why or why not?
  2. Do you think the high tech measures some colleges use to prevent cheating are worth the cost? Why or why not?
  3. Should professors only assign papers to be completed in class to prevent plagiarism? Why or why not?