<p>I don't know how the professor actually knows for sure by statistics that certain individuals cheat but good for him. I am just baffled by the kid that said it is quite normal and nothing unusual that he and everyone cheated, and he actually questioned the gall of the professor to initiate what he calls a witch hunt. Unbelievable.</p>
<p>The newcast said that the professor has the cheaters’ “digital fingerprint,” which seems to imply that there is more than just statistics being used to pinpoint specific perps. </p>
<p>Seriously, the student who said that “everyone cheats” should take an ethics class…</p>
<p>Heh, I fail to see how this is supposed to teach ethics… The prof has no way of knowing which specific students cheated, only that it is very likely some students did. For large populations you can get reasonable certainty out of statistics but for the individual students, there really isn’t anything to go on (college is all of what? 2 midterms at most and a final?). All this prof is teaching is that for the students who worked extra hard and legimately achieved higher scores, you need to bend your back in life to stay out of trouble. An apt lesson for the business world though. The assumption of statistics is that conditions never change whereas in reality, they most often do (more effort for an exam because you failed the last one etc). I hope the prof at least adjusted for collinearity and autocorrelation.</p>
<p>That said, the distribution looks fairly normally distributed to me? Could be wrong though as it went by rather fast.</p>
<p>Discussion on cheating and statistics reminded me of my chemistry class in high school.</p>
<p>The teacher had absolutly no control (etc.) over the class. We had a weekly test on Friday and cheating was rampant. Mondays we changed the seating arrangement. I went to complain to the teacher about the cheating and why wasn’t he doing anything about it. The teacher showed me his charts with each week’s seating arrangements and the grades that week. He then pointed out that myself and one other student always had the highest grades and in general the grades dropped the further away they were from the two of us. There were a few other little peaks in his plots. He had a whole system for calculating the grades based on the fact that cheating was going on. Never was sure how accurate it was, but it didn’t seem too good. Needless to say, his teaching contract was not renewed the following year.</p>
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<p>If these kids downloaded a copy of the exam, it could be traced to their personal computers, registered with the university network. I know that’s the case at my D’s school where they can identify anyone who downloads any particular copyrighted material illegally.</p>
<p>I would think that that second student could be expelled by the university for cheating, because he openly admitted that he has done as much, on camera no less.</p>
<p>Burden of proof would be on the university to prove the specifics–which tests he cheated on, etc. By that time, I’m sure he’d clam up.</p>
<p>Looks like 75% of the “identified (but we don’t know how)” cheaters have fessed up.</p>
<p>I do kind of wonder whether the prof knows WHICH students cheated or just knows that statistically a lot had to do so. The “turn yourself in” before you get caught rubric may have worked to “out” the cheaters.</p>
<p>I want to reiterate from my post…if they used the university network to download a copy of the exam, the university can trace it if it has the necessary system set up to detect copyright abuse, which it sounds like it might. Every file has a digital footprint and every student must register their personal computer (laptop) which makes anything that is downloaded onto it through that network traceable. If they decide to do a search of all the transferred data on the computers of the students in that class, they can find who downloaded the exam from anywhere, including an attached email file. At least at my kid’s college, this access is part of the agreement to use the school’s internet network.</p>
<p>I don’t even understand how they got a copy of the answers. From where? A test center? Doesn’t this guy ever change up his tests?</p>
<p>@wildwood, the universities do not keep records of such things. If they were scanning you while you were downloading the exact file from the exact ports they are scanning from the exact same location, it is <em>possible</em> but unlikely that they could catch you. </p>
<p>Most copyright infringement is caught when using such p2p programs as bittorrent where your ip is tracked for each particular file (and the program itself tells you the ips of your peers). For HTTP downloads, universities are generally not able to monitor such a thing. It is much more difficult to determine the nature of data transferred in the latter case.</p>
<p>^At my D’s university it was made quite clear to students, that they have the software to search through downloaded material to identify who received it. They do this when the copyright holder, etc. complains to the school because it has detected illegal downloading to its ip address. As I understand it, the university will then try to track where those particular files landed through saved records. I may be wrong on this, but there have been cases where the university has held students accountable after finding such infringements.</p>
<p>Shocked? Shocked? </p>
<p>Hardly. The student who said everyone cheats is the norm. The students who feel that it is best to honestly EARN a grade are the the exceptions. </p>
<p>How can earth can you expect students to study for tests and/or accumulate knowledge and/or think critically when they spend every waking minute texting, sexting and the like? </p>
<p>I saw the video segment on the news down here, I live in Orlando not far from UCF, and wasn’t sure whether it was intentionally funny or not. The part where th eprof wondered what the last 20 years of his life had been for because 200 out of 600 supposedly cheated on one test made me wonder if the guy was entirely lucid or not. </p>
<p>He also said it made him physically ill. </p>
<p>So then he goes public with it and rationalizes that if nothing else he will be teaching his students ethics. </p>
<p>Oh, brother. </p>
<p>And he is the guy teaching the class. </p>
<p>No wonder people do anything they can to get as far away as they can from public U’s like UCF. Run don’t walk.</p>
<p>The student who said everyone cheats then went on to accuse the professor of trying to teach the cheaters a “moral lesson” . . . duh!</p>
<p>Cecil, I am not quite sure I agree with your sentiment. So we are supposed to ignore or accept the reality that everyone cheats? There will always be someone who will cheat or find a way to cheat but we would be part of the problem if we accept and ignore the problem. This professor at least tries to do something about it. Whether it be small or large institution, there are things that can be done to combat cheating. First and foremost, at least we should change the mindset that thinks cheating is ok and a fact of life that we should not bother questioning. Start expelling kids by the droves and I bet there would be a lot less cheating there. I even would venture to guess that there will be a lot less cheating on the next test in this professor class.</p>
<p>I respect the honest hard working students who earn their grades. I detest the others. Maybe you thought I was saying cheating is no big deal. I am not saying that. </p>
<p>However, I do think the cheaters eventually get what they deserve. The market place, in other words The Real World, will segregate those who learned and those who did not. </p>
<p>The prof came off as about as clueless and clownish as humanly possible. I’ll bet UCF admin is thrilled that he went public with all this and the notion that this incident will actually “teach” (air quotes) any of his “students” (air quotes) anything is comical. </p>
<p>The notion that any of his students are even listening to him in any way shape or form is more like it. This prof, standing in a giant lecture hall preaching to almost certainly bored, half sober students, is basically the poster child for going to private schools. It should be an advertisement, “do not do this to your kids if you love them.” </p>
<p>UCF should change their slogan to “we are not a diploma mill. Really. Seriously. Trust us.”</p>
<p>ACC, Did you just pass them? I ask because you said that you teach basic accounting at Valencia CC and the majority of the students who go on to 4 year colleges from VCC enroll in UCF. So, I suspect that one or more of the cheaters had you as a prof. </p>
<p>I would feel just as bad as the prof in question if this had happened to me. I am not a teacher, but when I was young, I worked as an intern at a summer school program. One kid turned himself in for cheating. That lead us to discover that the majority of the kids in the class had cheated. Believe me, the teacher made a “BFD” about it. </p>
<p>It sounds like you don’t think this should have been made public. There have been similar cheating scandals before–U of Virginia, which not only expelled some students but revoked some degrees retroactively (YAY!!!), Duke business, West Point, etc. These aren’t what I’d call “diploma mills.” </p>
<p>Kudos to the prof. I respect him.</p>
<p>jonri,</p>
<p>I have no way of knowing who is in his class. I doubt I know any of his students. If they are in a giant lecture hall they might not be taking classes at a CC. </p>
<p>I’d respect the prof more if he’d update his tests each session. </p>
<p>Why do I get the feeling he teaches straight out of the book? Why do I get the feeling he is beholden to the publishing companies for centent? </p>
<p>This prof, in my opinion, is so far removed form reality and The Real World that it is a bit funny and, although it doesn’t make it right, it certainly in part explains why the students cheated in the first place.</p>
<p>How do you know the prof didn’t change his exam?!!! </p>
<p>There was an answer key. Somebody got it and passed it around:</p>
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<p>It sounds to me as if somebody hacked a computer. If that happened, there may be digital fingerprints for at least one person. </p>
<p>The students are seniors majoring in business. All I suggested was that one or more of the 200 students who allegedly cheated may have gone to VCC for the first two years and you may have taught them.</p>
<p>It does seem that someone got their hands on the answer key in advance, but I’d like to know how he determined who cheated. Maybe he’ll come forward with it after the second exam is given. Did he just base it on percentage of answers right or something? Hm.</p>
<p>Secondly, I don’t go to UCF, but I can assure you students in my large lecture classes are not “half sober” - they are “completely sober”. Bored, maybe, depending on the quality of the teacher ;). But generally consistently bored and half sober kids don’t come to class at all :p.</p>