That’s a shame. BU is known for its fine academics. (rolling eyes)
Posted on 05/02/2020 11:46:43 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
...The students in the chemistry class suspected of cheating are suspected of using a website to gain an advantage.
In a letter to students obtained by NBC10 Boston, the professor of the course wrote, “we have learned that some of you have used various means, including websites such as Chegg, to get help during the quizzes given remotely...Chegg is a website that offers online tutoring and homework help with a monthly membership, but some students can use it to scheme by posting questions -- like from a test -- that they need answered...
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcboston.com ...
Sounds like the BU Chem prof has standards.
Now, let’s talk about their lib arts group and Occasional Cortex.
I've used various delivery apps like Blackboard in online and classroom situations for years.
Students cheat all the time and do so with embarrassing transparency.
It happens in the classroom as well. I watched a student in the back row copying answers off another student during a mid-term exam. He was copying from some dumb bunny who was taking my course for the second time having flunked it the semester before.
I remember thinking, "Don't cheat off her her you fool. Cheat off this guy in the front row. He's going to ace this class."
I finished correcting an online final exam this morning for 20 students. How do I know they cheated?
About 5-6 of them made the same spelling mistake in answering a question with "Issac Newton." Pathetic.
When working over the internet with my students I adopted an entirely different test system. First, no questions, everything required extensive analysis and engineering details (the class was in Systems Engineering). Second, the students had to answer everything in a open setting and I had students criticize other’s answers. (These were for homework, not grade).
Finally, each test was on the honor system but with 24 yours to respond. I believe the students could use the internet for help here but I tried to use problems of my own design, that they could not look up. I thought it worked well, but was more work for me than a typical class with midterms from the textbook company. I guess the clever students could get answers from these too, but they were thousands of questions and they were generated for each test using a random process. Testing always has this problem, and when each student has the same problem, one student can send the rest of the class the answers. So showing the work becomes essential as well.
That’s a shame. BU is known for its fine academics. (rolling eyes)
Speaking of BU, AOC graduated with a degree in economics — and recently said how much she admired the economist “Milton Keynes”.
Surely BU doesn’t have standards that low. If she didn’t cheat, that means their standards are nonexistent. Either way the taxpayer loses, having stupid people like her running her district.
Students never would cheat when taking tests online.
Just like Democrats never would cheat when voting online.
Good for you.
I am not against online education. There just have to be fail safes in place, just like on roller coasters.
Not every professor is meant to be an online educator. Not every student is meant to be an online student. Not every class is meant to be an online class.
Not every class is meant to be an in person class. I took a medical terminology class via online learning. I cannot imagine a better class suited for the online format and a worse class suited for a traditional format.
We had to take our final exam at the testing center under supervisor.
Sadly as students embrace Leftist values, cheating and lying comes naturally. Personal integrity, honesty and logical thinking are scorned as bourgeois anachronisms. To be politically correct, you must be delusional.
Hiring managers are rightly skeptical about the value of degrees even from prestigious universities. A far better measurement for a prospective employee is an intelligence test and a psychological exam that gauges honesty.
A lot of people misspell Isaac.
The problem is for online tests the professors use a standard test generated by the textbook company. All you have to do is enter the question into a search engine and the question with the right answer will appear. A good option is to use a program that locks out the copy and paste feature and does not allow for other tabs to be open. You could also require a webcam to be present to ensure the test taker is not using another device.
“Assymetric” instead of asymmetric is also quite common.
I’m aware of at least one professor who put one of his difficult Final Exam questions on Clegg and proceeded to input the calculations and the answer incorrectly into Clegg.
20 of the 300 (or so) students used Clegg and copied the incorrect answer into their exam.
These 20 students failed the course and were referred to the Student Justice Board.
Surprise, surprise.
How many kids are getting perfect scores these days while online schools are the vogue?
Ha! Back in H.S. one of my football pals was copying off of my test in Chemistry class... I wrote “Punt” as one of my answers... He broke out laughing...
You are very correct. One of my classes was lab oriented. I needed to be there at each lab table. The students made all the typical mistakes and we worked out how to resolve them together. I could imagine some part being online, (especially with good graphics) but not everything.
I took MBA courses on line. I worked out well. The resources to check everything were also on line as well as company reports and real world recaps of events. We all communicated in paragraphs over the internet and it was not necessary to have in class discussions — which probably would have been good for the class if they were managed well.
I particularly liked the final exam under a supervisor. As I said earlier, students can take a photo of an exam question, look up the answer during a rest room break, and give the correct answer to the class with a single click.
I favor a zero fail for cheating.
Of course they cheated, at least some of them. Chegg and Coursehero are two to the most prominent pay to play (cheat) sites. Go to the sites and you’ll fined institutions from Pig Butt U. to Harvard there with assignment and test answers for most everything. I’ve caught enough of my students cheating over the years that I just have to look for the word or code patterns to recognize a cheat. They fail the course when I catch them whether it is week 1 or the final week. That said, this is not new and not confined to online courses. Students in face to face courses do the same thing. Back in the early 70s, before the internet, you could find all kinds of ads for test taker services (also known as goats) to take an exam in a large class where the professor could not know everyone personally to frats and sororities that maintained test and assignment books. The current time period makes no difference because chances are you’ve already hired someone who has done this, more than once.
No, we don’t all use the textbook exam questions or textbook assignments. My assignments, for instance, have a narrative and requirements written by me and if I use a textbook problem, I have changed the specs and the requirements to be more complicated with different expected outcomes. I’ve been dealing with Chegg, Coursehero, and others for years. For what it is worth, some of the “experts” who solve the problems for pay get it wrong or horribly foul up the solutions. One more thing that makes it easy for me to catch the lazy cheating and fail them for the course on the spot. Timing out the exams and randomizing the questions from a large pool is a good way to keep them from cheating. They run out of time if they don’t press ahead. No time to look up every answer. I despise cheaters and I warn them at the beginning of each term. I have developed a reputation for being a rat catcher.
I am professor at large university. My students are cheating and so are everyone else’s. The provost told us there is not enough staff to handle all the complaints. I used an online proctoring service which worked well but even they are now closed.
Not trying to get a “top this” going but I have had students-on more than one occasion over the years-actually copy the name of the student they were cheating off on their paper.
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