Cheating
continued from page 1
unique to this campus, or to Uni
versity students. An article in the
Nov. 22,1999, issue of U.S. News
& World Report described cheat
ing as problematic at the high
school level and at most college
campuses. And it’s on the rise.
“Nationally, the trend is signif
icant since the 1960s,” said Chris
Loschiavo, University director of
student judicial affairs. “There
has been a very sharp increase.”
The need to succeed
What has changed in academ
ics during the last 30 years to mo
tivate so much dishonesty?
The motivation for cheating in
high school is to get into college,
Loschiavo said.
“In today’s society, to have a
good job, you’ve got to have a
[college] degree,” he said.
In the last three decades, the
nature of the university has
changed. Thirty years ago, stu
dents came to the university just
to learn. Today, “students come
in to get a degree and get out and
get a good job,” Loschiavo said.
“The university is providing a
product.”
Add to that the increased fi
nancial burden of increasing tu
ition costs, extracurricular activ
ities and intense pressure to
succeed academically, and sud
denly the high numbers from the
survey seem believable, experts
say.
New schemes
Students have been using
some of the same techniques to
cheat throughout the years, but
with new technologies such as
programmable calculators and
the Internet, cheating has become
easier. “We know that with the
calculators that students have to
purchase for math classes, they
can program in an amazing
amount of stuff,” chemistry Pro
fessor Ralph Bamhard said. “In
chemistry, they program in the
periodic table and everything
you would want to know about
the elements.”
Bamhard counters this by try
ing to design exam questions that
don’t favor students with calcula
tors. He also warns students that
their calculators are subject to in
spection.
“It’s a rolling question in the
sciences: Should we allow stu
dents to use calculators?” he
said.
The Internet is prone to aca
demic dishonesty in the form of
plagiarism. Bamhard has seen as
signments that were clearly taken
directly from the Internet.
“The student didn’t even take
off the references [to the Inter
net],” he said. But “cheating on
exams is still the biggest because
it’s the easiest to do,” Loschiavo
said.
Large, crowded classrooms, re
cycled exams and too few proc
tors to monitor exams all con
tribute to an environment
conducive to cheating on tests.
“I’m surprised that some facul
ty don’t insist on more proctors,”
Bamhard said.
About one-quarter of the stu
dents surveyed admitted to using
the old fashioned cheating meth
ods, such as looking at a neigh
bor’s paper or bringing a crib
sheet into an exam.
Professors have always been
worried about old copies of ex
ams or homework being distrib
uted and compromising the fu
ture use of those documents.
“Dumpster diving” for old tests
and homework is pretty rampant,
business Professor Bill Daley
said. Recycling bins are often re
ceptacles of clean copies of old
exams.
The University Student Con
duct Committee and the Office of
the Dean of Students have pro
duced a booklet of policies and
guidelines for student academic
integrity. Some examples of
cheating as defined in the booklet
are:
• copying from another stu
dent’s test paper, computer pro
gram, project, product or per
formance;
• collaborating without author
ity or allowing another student to
copy one’s work in a test situa
tion;
• using the course textbook or
other material not authorized for
use during a test;
• resubmitting substantially
the same work that was pro
duced for another assignment
without the knowledge and per
mission of the instructor;
• taking a test for someone else
or permitting someone else to
take a test for you.
Fighting back
With such high percentages of
students cheating and the high
tech tools they’re using to accom
plish it, professors and adminis
trators are searching for ways to
stem the tide of academic dis
honesty.
Daley has taken a proactive ap
proach to cheating in his classes.
He has gone so far as to pro
duce six different exams printed
on four different colors of paper
to prevent cheating in some of
his larger lecture sections. He has
checked student identifications
before administering exams and
has demanded that students take
Cheating unlikely to be reported
Most students say they are unlikely to report another student they see cheating.
Half of all faculty say they mate little effort to document cheating incidents.
Likely effort by faculty to
document modems:
4% very great effort
Likelihood students would report a
cheating incident they observed:
2K very Bely
10% very little effort
SOURCE: 7990 Rutgen University survey of 10 state universities, including Oregon
off their hats and move all back
packs to the front of the class
room.
All of these precautions, espe
cially the creation of so many ex
ams, is a lot of work, Daley said.
To avoid having to create so
many tests, while still attempting
to prevent academic dishonesty,
Daley places more weight on
homework and class projects.
Still, the opportunity exists for
students to copy or use a group
project approach to an individual
assignment. And with more than
300 students a term and at least
one assignment a week, Daley
can’t afford the time to thorough
ly investigate each suspicious pa
per.
“How many minutes can I
spend on plagiarism each week?”
he asked.
Daley makes his position on
academic dishonesty clear at the
beginning of each course he
teaches.
Despite these efforts, Daley
still sees a significant number of
Katie Nesse Emerald
questionable papers.
“I think last term I had about
260 students in my intro class,”
he said. “I’ve got a folder with 30
cases” of questionable papers.
The Office of the Dean of Stu
dents, in addition to publishing
the policies and guidelines on
student academic integrity, has
circulated a letter at the begin
ning of each school year urging
professors to deter academic dis
honesty. It also provides a guide
for professors to follow when
faced with a case of academic
dishonesty.
The letter “creates awareness
on the faculty member’s part,”
Loschiavo said.
Loschiavo has other ideas such
as a periodic workshop to teach
faculty members how to prevent
academic dishonesty.
“The only way I’m ever going
to bring the high numbers of aca
demic dishonesty down is
through a combination of educat
ing students and faculty,” he
said.
MYTH
REALITY
Most UO students have
4 drinks or fewer when they party.
11998 CORE Survey
2000
ident life