Georgia Tech Cracks Down on Learning 979
The Washington Post has an article today on a Georgia Tech student who almost flunked his intro to comp sci course for just discussing his homework with someone else. Note that no one including the faculty accused him of actually copying any code from anyone. However, the "honor code" at Georgia Tech "forbids its introductory computer science students from seeking any help from other students on their homework." The faculty recorded part of his violation on the forms as "He was trying to learn it." This is something that high school seniors might want to keep in mind when selecting which university to attend.
Re:So? (Score:1, Informative)
"When he found himself with a homework assignment he did not understand, and no teaching assistants or professors available on a campus off-week, he convinced himself that just chatting with another student would not violate the rules. "
Re:So? (Score:2, Informative)
"When he found himself with a homework assignment he did not understand, and no teaching assistants or professors available on a campus off-week, he convinced himself that just chatting with another student would not violate the rules"
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Re:Notice the most indefensible part (Score:4, Informative)
Once the students "pass" this test and take later CS courses, most of the projects are collaborative in nature from the sheer magnitude of what has to be coded. But at some point, people have to be judged on their ability to code. Find me a better way to judge and I'll be all ears.
Re:College isn't for learning... (Score:0, Informative)
(cause of a lack of options, of course)
Re:Before we condemn the school... (Score:3, Informative)
Single quote? RTFA (Read The Fucking Article). IT is quite clear what the school's stance is.
"A brand-new rule says a computer science student is wrong to try to seek answers to questions ANYWHERE other than from course materials or Georgia Tech staff. Rooting around in old books in the library, checking the Internet, calling your cousin at Caltech--all are forbidden."
Re:Before we condemn the school... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Seems like an interesting solution (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Assembly (Score:2, Informative)
Re:So? (Score:3, Informative)
And I remember specific classes at Georgia Tech where I was either told (as a student) or I told students (as a TA) to write down in their HW the names of people that they discussed it with.
Re:Go to the U of Illinois@ CU (Score:3, Informative)
The intro course is quite fucked up, though. For some strange reason they refused to accept AP credit for it but rather accepted the AB CS test for the Java class despite the two having nothing in common.
College ISN'T for learning (Score:3, Informative)
What I mean by that statement is the following: CS professors here assign homeworks but don't give you any guidance or assistance on how to do them. At least at Columbia, CS homeworks are essentially depth first searches using trial and error as a heuristic. Googling for answers is not a frequent method of finding answers, but often the only method. Professors are essentially useless. It's nice to know that all my money has gone to the free teachings of Google. Sigh...
As far learning from others, I personally would argue that two minds are better than one. Of course the problem lies among students who aren't trying to learn, but trying only to get a good grade. Professors claim the line is too fine to allow learning from other students. My claim is that if students want to copy, it's their own loss. When it comes time to actually do something on their own, they will be completely lost. Try proving P=NP by copying an answer from a friend.
Perhaps it's analagous to the seatbelt law. If people don't want to wear seatbelts, it's their loss, yet wearing seatbelts is still a law (at least in my hometown of NJ).
Such are my experiences here for anyone deciding where to go.
From a Tech Student's Perspective... (Score:4, Informative)
Georgia Tech is in no way against teamwork. In fact, in many LATER courses, it is not only encouraged, but required to pass. In the introductory course, however, students are expected receive a firm foundation in the BASICS of programming and computer science like recursion, searching, sorting, algorithmic complexity, data structures, trees, graphs, etc. If a student cheats his way through ANY of these concepts, and expects to survive a later computer science course, he will not only damage his own grade, but the grade of his teammates as well.
I'd also like to point out a couple things either pushed aside or conveniently not mentioned in the article. First, the student in question was NOT accused of discussing his assignment with another student. To my knowledge, regular discussion of assignments is a very commonplace occurrence--especially on the four newsgroups available for the class. He was accused for CHEATING. No cheatfinder, however good, is going to find out if people DISCUSSED anything. It's only going to find people who have VERY similar, copied, code. Secondly, I'd like to mention that the person in question is also, apparently, the son of a Washington Post editor.
Be tested for coding abilities in an hour! (Score:4, Informative)
In my CS courses, tests in this format are given all the time. The Chairman of the TCU CS Department, Dr. Richard Rinewalt, has been head judge of the ACM programming contest-THAT programming contest-for several years. He supports this format and knows that it works. I believe it's reasonable to trust what he is doing.
From Someone who goes to Tech... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Short opinion (Score:2, Informative)
Computer science programs are LOADED with cheating. Not just a bit. A *lot*. The faculty at my institution didn't think we had a problem... until we looked. And what a problem it was.
I attended two undergraduate schools. One was an engineering school with an honor code, the other was a liberal arts school without one. Cheating was rampant at the engineering school. There were whacko punishments worse than the Georga Tech case but no one reported what really went on. There were friggin study groups during unproctored exams. But rthe punishments were too harsh for any of us to finger our friends, even if we disapproved of it. There were levels of cheating, but if you reported someone for cheating on an exam they could send the same punishment to you cuz a friend of yours asked you how to solve a homework problem. Completely untenable. At the liberal arts university exams counted more and were heavily proctored. I proctored one of those exams and caught a couple cheaters at the begining (palm pilots & HP's...) Then I stood behind the suspicious ones and while they may have hated my guts, they didn't cheat. Homeworks counted for a lot less at the liberal arts school, and professors complained that people didn't do them, but I think the students were better off.
I also graded homeworks at the liberal arts school, and there were about 20% who probably cheated on the first homework, then 10%, then there were none. I just gave them 0's on those homeworks (after telling the prof). They got a talk, but since the prof had the ability to give them F's for the class for cheating, they risked the C they might get not cheating. None of those caught on the first homework got less than a B, and no one caught on the second assignment got less than a C, there were D's & F's in the intro class so this wasn't too bad for the inauspicious beginings (the copied material was always just B quality or less anyway). Anyone caught cheating often got *extra* proctoring for a few terms but that wasn't so bad that they didn't own up to it when confronted, they just spent the time they should have on their classes. I can't say I'd wish grading one of these classes on anyone though, I had to read all horrible the code these kids wrote. The engineering school just ran test files that didn't really exercise programs, didn't catch memory leaks, off by one's, and wasn't very friendly to partial credit which really helps these students because you actually tell them what mistakes their making.
I later graded a more advanced Algorithms class and saw no cheating. No-one had the same set of 10 answers, they were tough assignments so they knew no-one had all the right answer, and cheaters know they are usually caught on shared mistakes.
Re:what? (Score:2, Informative)
Only if they aren't smart enough to cheat intelligently. I guarantee that they catch at most 1 in 10 and that's being generous.
Of course working with another student is not in any way cheating and it is very disturbing to me that universities and technical colleges are more and more taking the attitude that it is cheating. I don't care what the dumb rules of the particular institution are or whether they are spelled out in advance - working with others is NOT cheating. It is called learning. So much for institutions of learning and collaboration. Universities really have gone downhill in the last few years.
I would never send my child to one of these institutions, but I pity the professor or dumb bureaucrat who tries to screw my child through these kind of rules; they'll certainly rue the day.
TA here... (Score:2, Informative)
Why? Because it works. As someone who has graded thousands of lines of code in a single night, it you know the language and the material, and you known the students, it is obvious who copied from who. Despite the example someone game, it is rare to have a 30 line block almost identical, even in a 600 line program. I know, because I had to look at those programs for three years.
The real moral of the story is that if the students don't understand and don't ask the TA then most of the time, not always, but most of the time, you need friendlier or better TAs
Re:what? (Score:2, Informative)
The facts in this article are very much misconstrued. It *IS* allowed for students to refer to outside resources or other students for general concepts. However, when that gets to the point where two students have identical code, you have a problem. I would assume this would be the case in any reputable institution.
On the first day of class, what defines cheating is made crystal clear. The lecture slides about cheating are freely available for anyone, including the author of that article, to access.:
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/AY2002/cs1321_fal l/dsmith/Cheating.ppt [gatech.edu]
The CS curriculum at Georgia Tech includes many classes which involve group projects and other work of that nature, but 1321 is not one of them. It is an introductory course designed to teach *individual* students the fundamentals of data structures and algorithms. I know. I took it last semester.
I applaud the fact that the student was trying to learn the material. I do the same. However, I go see professors during their office hours or TAs in the lab (which is manned continuously from 10-5 every day), rather than violating such a clearly-defined cheating policy.