catching Chegg cheaters

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I got lucky. They sent me the timestamps and I was able to match them up with students. Some questions had unique numbers as well and only one student had them. I'm preparing all of the paperwork (pain in the ass, but I can't stand cheating, so I do it) and will send it off tonight.

Tomorrow should be interesting.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

And it's already interesting...

[Ruralguy]

I actually do a lot to prevent cheating, such as changing around problem set questions and using problems from older books that don't have widely distributed , etc. and so forth. But chasing after every possible Chegg cheater? There's a point at which I refuse to chase after every possibility.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I actually do a lot to prevent cheating, such as changing around problem set questions and using problems from older books that don't have widely distributed , etc. and so forth. But chasing after every possible Chegg cheater? There's a point at which I refuse to chase after every possibility.

This was so blatant, that I could not ignore it. This kind of stuff just sets my soul on fire- in the bad way. Anyway, the main issue was wrangling the info from Chegg. After I had that, it was easy-peasy to connect the dots.

[Caracal]

I got lucky. They sent me the timestamps and I was able to match them up with students. Some questions had unique numbers as well and only one student had them. I'm preparing all of the paperwork (pain in the ass, but I can't stand cheating, so I do it) and will send it off tonight.

Tomorrow should be interesting.

I'm still a little bit concerned about the validity of that as evidence. Yes, the unique numbers part is convincing and if only one student had accessed the test, or a version of the test when a question was posted, that is enough evidence to show that the student did something wrong. However, be careful not to assume that just because only one student had the exam open at that time, that they are the only ones who could have access to questions. If your students are posting questions on Chegg, there's no reason to think they aren't also sending questions to other students who could put them on Chegg before they open the actual exam.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I got lucky. They sent me the timestamps and I was able to match them up with students. Some questions had unique numbers as well and only one student had them. I'm preparing all of the paperwork (pain in the ass, but I can't stand cheating, so I do it) and will send it off tonight.

Tomorrow should be interesting.

I'm still a little bit concerned about the validity of that as evidence. Yes, the unique numbers part is convincing and if only one student had accessed the test, or a version of the test when a question was posted, that is enough evidence to show that the student did something wrong. However, be careful not to assume that just because only one student had the exam open at that time, that they are the only ones who could have access to questions. If your students are posting questions on Chegg, there's no reason to think they aren't also sending questions to other students who could put them on Chegg before they open the actual exam.

I agree. I'm sure I missed some. All I can do is present evidence that suggests something odd is going on. Oh, and I already had one of the students confess.

[marshwiggle]

However, be careful not to assume that just because only one student had the exam open at that time, that they are the only ones who could have access to questions. If your students are posting questions on Chegg, there's no reason to think they aren't also sending questions to other students who could put them on Chegg before they open the actual exam.

Well, the whole point of this is that the student who posted the exam is guilty of abetting cheating, at the very least. And that's more egregious than copying answers from someone else.

[Caracal]

However, be careful not to assume that just because only one student had the exam open at that time, that they are the only ones who could have access to questions. If your students are posting questions on Chegg, there's no reason to think they aren't also sending questions to other students who could put them on Chegg before they open the actual exam.

Well, the whole point of this is that the student who posted the exam is guilty of abetting cheating, at the very least. And that's more egregious than copying answers from someone else.

Yeah, there's just always the chance that a student just happened to be logged on when somebody else posted answers they had received from a different student earlier. Two students doing something wrong in this scenario, but the one taking the test is totally uninvolved.

[marshwiggle]

However, be careful not to assume that just because only one student had the exam open at that time, that they are the only ones who could have access to questions. If your students are posting questions on Chegg, there's no reason to think they aren't also sending questions to other students who could put them on Chegg before they open the actual exam.

Well, the whole point of this is that the student who posted the exam is guilty of abetting cheating, at the very least. And that's more egregious than copying answers from someone else.

Yeah, there's just always the chance that a student just happened to be logged on when somebody else posted answers they had received from a different student earlier. Two students doing something wrong in this scenario, but the one taking the test is totally uninvolved.

Now with the unique tests; the only way a particular test can be uploaded is with some knowledge of the student whose test it was. (Unless you're going into tinfoil hat territory for subterfuge.)

[arcturus]

Some of the posters on this thread seem overly defensive for the students here. My experience is that some students cheat. It is our responsibility as faculty to minimize the opportunities for students to cheat and to report them when they do. Most universities require a conversation between instructor and student before students are reported for misconduct. If the wild scenarios that have been proposed here were in fact the case, that would likely come out during such a conversation. My experience is that most students confess when prompted, so there is not much ambiguity in the cases I report. Of course, most of the cases I detect are the straightforward copying-from-the-internet types of plagiarism.

I would be amused (but still report it) if a student responded by saying that they heard from Jim Cramer on CNBC that Chegg was a good (monetary) investment because it is just like a university and education never goes out of style. Thus, it was not cheating since they were simply taking a class on Chegg that had signicant overlap with the one that had test questions posted there.

[polly_mer]

Some of the posters on this thread seem overly defensive for the students here.

Agreed.  When questions are unique to a given student, the time of posting is irrelevant.

The only ways to know those questions involve malfeasance of some sort:

* peeking over someone else's shoulder
* receiving questions from someone else
* being the person who was assigned the questions

It doesn't actually matter which is true in any given case.  The fact remains that cheating in some form occurred.

[Caracal]

Some of the posters on this thread seem overly defensive for the students here.

Agreed.  When questions are unique to a given student, the time of posting is irrelevant.

The only ways to know those questions involve malfeasance of some sort:

* peeking over someone else's shoulder
* receiving questions from someone else
* being the person who was assigned the questions

It doesn't actually matter which is true in any given case.  The fact remains that cheating in some form occurred.

To be clear, I'm not saying Evil Physics Wizard is doing anything wrong, I can't tell from the details provided exactly what is happening here.

1. Yes, obviously if you got the account information from Chegg of someone who posted the exam and it matched with a student in your class, that person cheated.

2. If the version on Chegg is unique, then you can identify the person who cheated.

3. If only one student had access to an exam or a version of the exam at the point it was posted, that person cheated.

The problem is that if one of those three things isn't true, it actually isn't very clear. The fact that only one student was taking the exam at a time when the question was posted to Chegg is enough to cast some suspicion on that student, but I really don't think it is enough to accuse them of anything by itself.

The scenario where a student gets the exam from a person who had taken it earlier and then puts it on Chegg to get the answers before they actually start taking their own exam seems totally plausible. I would be sort of shocked if students didn't sometimes send their friends screenshots of the exam, and once you have that, why would you wait till you start taking it? And yes, in this scenario there would be two guilty parties, but the person taking the exam when the question was posted to Chegg could be entirely innocent.

And yeah, I actually do think it is very important not be accusing students falsely. I'm not going to bring a case of cheating unless I'm convinced that there's no reasonably plausible way the student didn't cheat.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Some of the posters on this thread seem overly defensive for the students here.

Agreed.  When questions are unique to a given student, the time of posting is irrelevant.

The only ways to know those questions involve malfeasance of some sort:

* peeking over someone else's shoulder
* receiving questions from someone else
* being the person who was assigned the questions

It doesn't actually matter which is true in any given case.  The fact remains that cheating in some form occurred.

To be clear, I'm not saying Evil Physics Wizard Witchcraft is doing anything wrong, I can't tell from the details provided exactly what is happening here.

1. Yes, obviously if you got the account information from Chegg of someone who posted the exam and it matched with a student in your class, that person cheated.

2. If the version on Chegg is unique, then you can identify the person who cheated.

3. If only one student had access to an exam or a version of the exam at the point it was posted, that person cheated.

The problem is that if one of those three things isn't true, it actually isn't very clear. The fact that only one student was taking the exam at a time when the question was posted to Chegg is enough to cast some suspicion on that student, but I really don't think it is enough to accuse them of anything by itself.

The scenario where a student gets the exam from a person who had taken it earlier and then puts it on Chegg to get the answers before they actually start taking their own exam seems totally plausible. I would be sort of shocked if students didn't sometimes send their friends screenshots of the exam, and once you have that, why would you wait till you start taking it? And yes, in this scenario there would be two guilty parties, but the person taking the exam when the question was posted to Chegg could be entirely innocent.

And yeah, I actually do think it is very important not be accusing students falsely. I'm not going to bring a case of cheating unless I'm convinced that there's no reasonably plausible way the student didn't cheat.

I see your point and this is why I initially hesitated since I couldn't narrow down the students; however, the time stamps helped greatly and more information is on the way. One student confessed, which IMO strengthens my case for the other, but I could be wrong... however, the other student has exhibited radio silence. I'm sure that info was probably shared, but it just seems very, very odd that every time Student A took a test the questions from his/her test appeared on Chegg during that hour of test-taking and ONLY that hour. Same for Student B.

[Caracal]

Some of the posters on this thread seem overly defensive for the students here.

Agreed.  When questions are unique to a given student, the time of posting is irrelevant.

The only ways to know those questions involve malfeasance of some sort:

* peeking over someone else's shoulder
* receiving questions from someone else
* being the person who was assigned the questions

It doesn't actually matter which is true in any given case.  The fact remains that cheating in some form occurred.

To be clear, I'm not saying Evil Physics Wizard Witchcraft is doing anything wrong, I can't tell from the details provided exactly what is happening here.

1. Yes, obviously if you got the account information from Chegg of someone who posted the exam and it matched with a student in your class, that person cheated.

2. If the version on Chegg is unique, then you can identify the person who cheated.

3. If only one student had access to an exam or a version of the exam at the point it was posted, that person cheated.

The problem is that if one of those three things isn't true, it actually isn't very clear. The fact that only one student was taking the exam at a time when the question was posted to Chegg is enough to cast some suspicion on that student, but I really don't think it is enough to accuse them of anything by itself.

The scenario where a student gets the exam from a person who had taken it earlier and then puts it on Chegg to get the answers before they actually start taking their own exam seems totally plausible. I would be sort of shocked if students didn't sometimes send their friends screenshots of the exam, and once you have that, why would you wait till you start taking it? And yes, in this scenario there would be two guilty parties, but the person taking the exam when the question was posted to Chegg could be entirely innocent.

And yeah, I actually do think it is very important not be accusing students falsely. I'm not going to bring a case of cheating unless I'm convinced that there's no reasonably plausible way the student didn't cheat.

I see your point and this is why I initially hesitated since I couldn't narrow down the students; however, the time stamps helped greatly and more information is on the way. One student confessed, which IMO strengthens my case for the other, but I could be wrong... however, the other student has exhibited radio silence. I'm sure that info was probably shared, but it just seems very, very odd that every time Student A took a test the questions from his/her test appeared on Chegg during that hour of test-taking and ONLY that hour. Same for Student B.

Sure, yes, a repeated pattern certainly strengthens the case a lot. One time it is posted while he's on it...well somebody is often taking an exam...twice would be quite a coincidence if he's innocent.

[pepsi_alum]

I'm sure that some of my students have leaked answers to sites like Chegg or Quizlet over the years. Honestly, I don't worry too much about it, because (1) I have large question pools that are randomized, (2) quizzes are worth at most 15% of the course grade in my classes and (3) at least in regular semesters, the quizzes are meant to be prepratory work for major exams and papers. If they cheat on quizzes, they aren't likely to do well on the major assignments.

I'd also add that universities have a responsibility to deal with cheating at an institutional level. When administrators (a) choose LMS platforms that lack secure quiz features, (b) don't provide access to software like Respondus Lockdown, or (c) allow students and parents to bully their way out of "minor" cheating charges, they contribute to that school's overall academic culture. And yes, I've been at pleaces where these things all happened.