Cheaters

[xerprofrn]

I had four students (two groups of two) in my last summer class who had a friend send them their paper, and then just used a thesaurus on every third noun.

There are websites that do this automatically--paste in some text, hit a button, and get back an oddly-phrased but undetectable plagiarized essay. A not-very-technical colleague just sent me two such essays his students had submitted and an hour of Google searches gave me nothing.

I am not sure what the answer is, except to craft assignments where the students are required to create something so specific that there is nothing they could plagiarize from.

My department has seen several of these auto-paraphrased papers recently. I expect that a desperate student might resort to such measures no matter how plagiarism-proof the assignment might be ("I haven't even read The Big Novel, so I have no idea how to do this creative thing. I guess I'll just run SparkNotes through a paraphraser..."), but crafty assignments do help.

I had a student do that in my course, and I reported it as blatant plagiarism.  Nothing was done to the student at all, except for a zero on the assignment.  She barely passed my class; however, I knew she would eventually fail out.  Unfortunately, she is an ELL student who really struggles with reading and writing in English.  However, it's for the best considering that my area requires understanding the written word or people die. Literally.

[collegeprof19]

Hi xerprofrn,

I have recently been following up on students that plagiarized that I had previously reported to the dean of student services.  I have been shocked to learn that very little is done to discipline students who have a proven instance of plagiarism. In most cases, the student was just put on a list. In a few cases where the I reported the student THREE separate times in the same class, and then followed up for weeks with the dean just to get an email response, the student was not disciplined except for threatening more serious discipline in the future.  One student was going to fail the course because of his multiple zero grades in the class, so the dean backdated his withdrawal so he could get a W.  I feel like the administrations I work for (I'm an adjunct at three community colleges) are purposely looking away to avoid real discipline for plagiarism. It might even be a administrative policy and I'm very concerned.

[Caracal]

Hi xerprofrn,

I have recently been following up on students that plagiarized that I had previously reported to the dean of student services.  I have been shocked to learn that very little is done to discipline students who have a proven instance of plagiarism. In most cases, the student was just put on a list. In a few cases where the I reported the student THREE separate times in the same class, and then followed up for weeks with the dean just to get an email response, the student was not disciplined except for threatening more serious discipline in the future.  One student was going to fail the course because of his multiple zero grades in the class, so the dean backdated his withdrawal so he could get a W.  I feel like the administrations I work for (I'm an adjunct at three community colleges) are purposely looking away to avoid real discipline for plagiarism. It might even be a administrative policy and I'm very concerned.

In theory, the idea here is that a first offense can result in a zero on the assignment, but it gets reported so that more serious consequences can be applied for repeated plagiarism. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but it sounds like these policies are being misapplied in this case.

[adel9216]

I guess that makes me incredibly naive, but I could not, ever, ever, imagine taking the risk of cheating. I just can't. I have never done so. Have never considered doing so. I would not be able to look at myself in the mirror if my success was not mine...I prefer failing than cheating. Wow.

When I will teach, I will need to pay attention to that, I had not realized it was so common...

[Aster]

Yeah, college cheating is rampant and widespread.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/02/23/9-in-10-students-admit-to-cheating-in-college-suspect-faculty-do-the-same.aspx

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cheating-in-college-where_b_4826136

https://www.voanews.com/student-union/how-many-college-students-admit-cheating

[pepsi_alum]

Hi xerprofrn,

I have recently been following up on students that plagiarized that I had previously reported to the dean of student services.  I have been shocked to learn that very little is done to discipline students who have a proven instance of plagiarism. In most cases, the student was just put on a list. In a few cases where the I reported the student THREE separate times in the same class, and then followed up for weeks with the dean just to get an email response, the student was not disciplined except for threatening more serious discipline in the future.  One student was going to fail the course because of his multiple zero grades in the class, so the dean backdated his withdrawal so he could get a W.  I feel like the administrations I work for (I'm an adjunct at three community colleges) are purposely looking away to avoid real discipline for plagiarism. It might even be a administrative policy and I'm very concerned.

In theory, the idea here is that a first offense can result in a zero on the assignment, but it gets reported so that more serious consequences can be applied for repeated plagiarism. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but it sounds like these policies are being misapplied in this case.

It's maddening when this happens, but my philosophy is that the issue is really between the student and university, not the student and me. That is, the college/university owns the problem, not me.

A few years ago, I was pressured into withdrawing an open/shut cheating case because the student's helicopter mom was revving up and my then-department head wasn't willing to invest the time into dealing with her "over such a low-stakes assignment" (40 points out of 1,000). I was enraged and it led me to lose confidence in that department head. The next semester, the student went on to cause more problems in other classes. But by then, it was my department head's problem to deal with, not mine. The student left the university at the end of that semester with mostly failing grades and without a degree. I like to think that the student might have gotten their wake-up call a semester earlier if my AI charges had been allowed to stick, but things ultimately still worked out. The department head stepped down about a year later for unrelated reasons, though I do have it on good authority that a lot of other faculty found this person "conflict avoidant." 

[collegeprof19]

Thanks for sharing, pepsi_alum. While I agree that it makes sense to leave this to the university to tend to, I am also feeling outraged by the lack of action. Conflict avoidant is a perfect way to describe two of the administrations I work for.  It absolutely makes sense because there is no incentive to dive in and solve conflicts, but then again, isn't managing conflict the job of the dean of student services? Ugh.  I am looking ahead and seeing that slowly the integrity of education itself is being degraded by this lack of action.

Right now I am just collecting stories, in order to figure out if these instances are merely anecdotal or more widespread across universities.  Don't know how many I have to hear before I decide that real investigation needs to be done.

Thanks for your story.

[mamselle]

See: "Black Binders of. Doom, Anthroid" on the old Forum.....

M.

[xerprofrn]

Hi xerprofrn,

I have recently been following up on students that plagiarized that I had previously reported to the dean of student services.  I have been shocked to learn that very little is done to discipline students who have a proven instance of plagiarism. In most cases, the student was just put on a list. In a few cases where the I reported the student THREE separate times in the same class, and then followed up for weeks with the dean just to get an email response, the student was not disciplined except for threatening more serious discipline in the future.  One student was going to fail the course because of his multiple zero grades in the class, so the dean backdated his withdrawal so he could get a W.  I feel like the administrations I work for (I'm an adjunct at three community colleges) are purposely looking away to avoid real discipline for plagiarism. It might even be a administrative policy and I'm very concerned.

In theory, the idea here is that a first offense can result in a zero on the assignment, but it gets reported so that more serious consequences can be applied for repeated plagiarism. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but it sounds like these policies are being misapplied in this case.

I completely agree that first offense should be a zero with subsequent offenses having harsher penalties.  However, I can't even get the first damn offense on record when my admin doesn't follow its own policies!

[mamselle]

See: "Black Binders of. Doom, Anthroid" on the old Forum.....

M.

This is the thread...

    https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,34546.0.html

You have to go in a few pages to get the meeting details.

M.