A fascinating article in the New York Times looks at some of the more unusual measures taken to fight cheating at the University of Central Florida and other US institutions. Approaches range from the unremarkable (Turnitin) to the ‘I would never have thought of that in a million years’, such as banning baseball caps from being worn the right way round in case answers were written on the underside of the brim. Firmly technological approaches include overhead cameras which record any ‘suspicious’ behaviour by a student at the same time as recording what is happening on their computer for later investigation.
Such a paranoid approach to student integrity, although apparently very successful, does start from the assumption that all students are out to cheat, an attitude that both students and institutions can find unacceptable, and the article cites one institution that felt the use of Turnitin was inconsistent with their own policies and honour code.
As anyone who’s ever marked written work will know, there are grades of cheating and of plagiarism, and much of what is identified as plagiarism is not an intentional attempt at cheating but often the result of weak academic or communication skills, or bad time management and study practices. It’s very encouraging to see that educating students about what constitutes plagiarism can have a substantial impact on rates of plagiarism – not all those who ‘cheat’ are actually setting out to do so. As for those who are: some of the examples here will certainly astonish…