catching Chegg cheaters

[polly_mer]

When I was teaching engineering, I sometimes assigned homework problems to which the easily Googlable answers were bizarrely wrong (think using the ideal gas law for liquid water that must use the steam table or significant typo in the equations such that the answer couldn't possibly come from those equations).  Then, I would inform all the students whose papers had that bizarrely wrong answer that I knew they were cheating and it was in their best interest to either cheat better (i.e., know enough about the actual material, even if they couldn't immediately do it on their own) or start coming to the help sessions.

Last semester, we were reading a non-fiction book called "American Dream" about welfare reform. I was assigning low stakes response papers to keep students accountable for the reading and got really confused when I had several students writing about characters known only as mommy and daddy who seemed to have killed their son or something. Apparently, there's an Edward Albee play also called American Dream...

Ah, the other thread with the requirement to send the professor a photograph of the student with the book or the physical book brought to class makes more sense now. 

I can't remember who wrote it now, but one forumite years ago wrote something like:

Dear student,

Do you realize how many announcements, readings, writings, and activities you had to miss to be in your current state of ignorance on this point?

I'm not angry or anything. 

I'm just befuddled because that particular message has been everywhere in this course  for three weeks.  I purposely made it hard to ignore for anyone who made any effort whatsoever to keep up.

I'm at a loss on what to tell you at this point when you've missed literally the entire class up to this point, despite being physically present and submitting work.

I haven't had any students to that degree, but I have definitely wondered about students who did the equivalent of a web search on something that used the same keywords, but were so, so far off in the context of the class discussions and other assignments that the question is indeed "how in the world could you have missed that?"

[Caracal]

I haven't had any students to that degree, but I have definitely wondered about students who did the equivalent of a web search on something that used the same keywords, but were so, so far off in the context of the class discussions and other assignments that the question is indeed "how in the world could you have missed that?"

Oh, it is always amazing how checked out a small number of students are. I was teaching a class where we read a diary by a South Carolina cotton planter named Chaplin. A student wrote a response paper consisting entirely of a biography of Charlie Chaplin copied from Wikipedia. The guy came to class regularly.

Years ago in grad school a couple of friends of mine were TAing for the same class that had discussion sections. One of my friends was confused when a few weeks into the class, a random student who had never been there before showed up to his discussion section. He asked the student if she was in the other section. Confusingly she said she wasn't sure. It turned out that she was in the other section and had been going to that one regularly.  One of the TAs was a large, bearded man. The other was a petite woman more than a foot shorter.

[the_geneticist]

I fully agree that it's not worth chasing down students who cheated on the basics.  That being said, you need to write at least a few exam questions that are too difficult to cheat on.  Make them so there are multiple correct solutions or multiple ways to solve them and require students to write down their reasons for choosing that method.
My saddest cheating case was a student who didn't turn in a lab report, when told he could still turn it in late for feedback & partial credit, he turned in another student's assignment with his name on it.  The sad part?  It was already graded BY ME and showed my comments to the other student.

[polly_mer]

The sad part?  It was already graded BY ME and showed my comments to the other student.

I had a student claim that I couldn't prove he had cheated just because my comments to a different student on a highly unusual situation were copied verbatim onto this particular assignment.  After all, there were many ways that those words could have appeared to be about the same.

The chair looked at both papers and said, "Well, that's a slam dunk on cheating, isn't it?  Here's how you fill out the paperwork for the academic standards committee."

[bopper]

The sad part?  It was already graded BY ME and showed my comments to the other student.

I had a student claim that I couldn't prove he had cheated just because my comments to a different student on a highly unusual situation were copied verbatim onto this particular assignment.  After all, there were many ways that those words could have appeared to be about the same.

The chair looked at both papers and said, "Well, that's a slam dunk on cheating, isn't it?  Here's how you fill out the paperwork for the academic standards committee."

This is why courts use the "beyond a reasonable doubt" threshold...yes there could be some bizzarro reason that happened but any reasonable person knows this is cheating.

[clean]

Set exams so that they are in a short time frame and everyone takes it at the same time.  If no one has the exam before anyone else, and only has 75 minutes to answer the questions, (and add Examity or Respondis Monitor and Lock Down Browser) then there is no time and reduced ability  to post or search Chegg for answer.

My own class' textbook has a test bank. I have found the test bank has been turned into Flash Cards!!!
I am in finance, so I have taken the test bank questions and changed one number in every problem!  I have warned the classes that there are test banks available BUT that they should not learn the answers to those questions.  IF, on test day, they see the same answer that they found online, THAT is the ONE answer that they can be sure is wrong!  When there are "which of the following are correct?" questions, I have modified the original correct answer to be incorrect and fixed one that was not, to be correct now.  In addition, I have merged some of the questions so that there are now more than one correct answer and added "Both A & B" (for example) are correct, or None of the above is correct.  In some I didnt change anything other than add "none of the above or ""Both A & B" ... just so they do not think that IF they see that, it is the new correct answer.

So My suggestion is to take the advice given earlier.  Copy the answers from Chegg and punish anyone using them for 'plagiarism' at a minimum.  Otherwise, change your tests so that YOU reduce the opportunity to cheat.

Finally, Dont worry about student evaluations.  IF you have bad evaluations because you punish cheaters, then whoever looks at evaluations will reward and not punish you.  When evaluations are measured (in annual evaluations or tenure and promotion purposes), make sure that you highlight the comments about reducing cheating!

Finally, Finally, When classes resume, whether face to face or online, make it a point to point out your academic honesty policy on your syllabus. Make a big deal that you care not one bit about cheaters. What you care about are the honest students that the cheater is stealing from !  Someone cheating is stealing a degree and cheapening it from those that have actually learned the material and THAT you will NOT tollerate!

Good Luck!  Tow the Line!

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Unfortunately, I also found some cheaters who used chegg. Our institution would not allow us to use Respondus or a webcam (no comment), so I knew something like this would happen. I managed to nail down the days that the questions were asked on chegg and matched them up with the days that students took exams. Unfortunately, I cannot match up times (no obvious time stamp on chegg). One poor soul is the only one of my students to take my exam on the same day a chegg question was asked for that test. This particular question is very unique- I drew the diagram myself and reworded the question.

My admins have been alerted and I'm awaiting further instructions.

[Caracal]

Unfortunately, I also found some cheaters who used chegg. Our institution would not allow us to use Respondus or a webcam (no comment), so I knew something like this would happen. I managed to nail down the days that the questions were asked on chegg and matched them up with the days that students took exams. Unfortunately, I cannot match up times (no obvious time stamp on chegg). One poor soul is the only one of my students to take my exam on the same day a chegg question was asked for that test. This particular question is very unique- I drew the diagram myself and reworded the question.

My admins have been alerted and I'm awaiting further instructions.

Is that conclusive though? Couldn't another student have taken the test before, and then sent the questions to another student who asked the question on Chegg? That seems totally plausible to me. How fast is the turnaround time on Chegg anyway? Would you really be able to get an answer to your question in time for the test?

[polly_mer]

How fast is the turnaround time on Chegg anyway? Would you really be able to get an answer to your question in time for the test?

The Chegg help desk claims 2 hours up to the occasional 3 days

Thus, a pretty standard 24-48 hours for a take-home test in things I taught absolutely could get answers.  Even the 6-8 hours to do a bunch of problems with expected online research would permit Chegg's 2 hours to answer.

[eigen]

How fast is the turnaround time on Chegg anyway? Would you really be able to get an answer to your question in time for the test?

The Chegg help desk claims 2 hours up to the occasional 3 days

Thus, a pretty standard 24-48 hours for a take-home test in things I taught absolutely could get answers.  Even the 6-8 hours to do a bunch of problems with expected online research would permit Chegg's 2 hours to answer.

Honestly, my personal take is that short, timed take home exams during this time do more to hurt honest students than they do to prevent students cheating. Many of my students have had to take jobs with unpredictable schedules, and many don't have internet access or a computer at home.

There are ways to write exams that minimize cheating, but a customized answer to exactly what you ask is.... really hard to detect as wrong. The clue is when you get multiple submissions that are identical in setup and order, but proving it is still hard especially if it's the right answer (with work shown and reasoning).

Wrong, identical answers are a lot easier to deal with.

[polly_mer]

Wrong, identical answers are a lot easier to deal with.

Even correct identical-down-to-the-last-detail answers were pretty easy to deal with when I would give take-home exams on the honor system years ago.

That multipart question with no variable names given and drawings required with several calculation steps and then a summary paragraph were great for people who made an effort, but terrible for the cheaters.

[eigen]

Wrong, identical answers are a lot easier to deal with.

Even correct identical-down-to-the-last-detail answers were pretty easy to deal with when I would give take-home exams on the honor system years ago.

That multipart question with no variable names given and drawings required with several calculation steps and then a summary paragraph were great for people who made an effort, but terrible for the cheaters.

Yeah, some more than others. For instance, synthetic schemes/mechanisms are often going to be identical for correct students, cheating or not.

[polly_mer]

Wrong, identical answers are a lot easier to deal with.

Even correct identical-down-to-the-last-detail answers were pretty easy to deal with when I would give take-home exams on the honor system years ago.

That multipart question with no variable names given and drawings required with several calculation steps and then a summary paragraph were great for people who made an effort, but terrible for the cheaters.

Yeah, some more than others. For instance, synthetic schemes/mechanisms are often going to be identical for correct students, cheating or not.

That's where the paragraph comes in to explain the overall result and the multiparts have legitimately different paths (e.g., there's no reason for everyone to choose the bathtub over the sink, hot tub, or swimming pool, especially when the order of the choices are varied).

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Unfortunately, I also found some cheaters who used chegg. Our institution would not allow us to use Respondus or a webcam (no comment), so I knew something like this would happen. I managed to nail down the days that the questions were asked on chegg and matched them up with the days that students took exams. Unfortunately, I cannot match up times (no obvious time stamp on chegg). One poor soul is the only one of my students to take my exam on the same day a chegg question was asked for that test. This particular question is very unique- I drew the diagram myself and reworded the question.

My admins have been alerted and I'm awaiting further instructions.

Is that conclusive though? Couldn't another student have taken the test before, and then sent the questions to another student who asked the question on Chegg? That seems totally plausible to me. How fast is the turnaround time on Chegg anyway? Would you really be able to get an answer to your question in time for the test?

I looked at the source code to find the date the questions were posted. All were posted this semester during the times my exams were open. The questions are also very unique and easily identifiable as items that I created. I have spoken with my Chair and it's moving up to the Dean.

[Hegemony]

It would be pleasant to plant some little red flags in there to retrieve when proving the point to administration. Like "Charles Humphries exerts g gravity, currently heading east at ten E = R S." (Only, you know, one that made sense.) Spells out CHEGG CHEATERS.