Who's Going To Uni?

[BFTD]

53 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I'm sure one of these kind gentlemen on the web who write your students essays for them will help you out. 

I've been reliably informed that they're all fed through The Computer, which eats any duplicate work it finds and craps out dismissal notices.

Thank God these things weren't around when I copypasted 4,000 words for a meaningless college essay twenty-five years ago!

Spoiler

That's not true, I'm a notorious liar, ask anyone  

 

[scottsdad]

There was an episode of Friends once where Joey went through a letter he wrote with a thesaurus to make it sound smarter. The end result was gibberish. 

I get that now with some student coursework. They copy and paste something and see that it gives them a high score on the plagiarism checker. They then feed it into a paraphrasing tool that changes the words using an online thesaurus. The result is utter nonsense. 

Come the disciplinary hearing the students sometimes don't understand that this is plagiarism. They believe that by having a low score on the similarity checker they haven't committed plagiarism. They even say "Turnitin only showed 15% plagiarism". 

 

[Florentine_Pogen]

5 hours ago, scottsdad said:

 "Turnitin only showed 15% plagiarism". 

 

'I hear you're a plagiarist now, Father.............'

[scottsdad]

Perhaps one for the Covid thread, but there is a meeting today between the Scottish Government and the university leadership discussing moving the first 3 weeks of semester 2 to online only. And then wait and see what the numbers are. 

Going on past experience, if this happens then it will be completely online. 

Expecting an announcement of some sort in the next few days

[The Master]

1 hour ago, scottsdad said:

Perhaps one for the Covid thread, but there is a meeting today between the Scottish Government and the university leadership discussing moving the first 3 weeks of semester 2 to online only. And then wait and see what the numbers are. 

Going on past experience, if this happens then it will be completely online. 

Expecting an announcement of some sort in the next few days

Not all universities have the same term dates do they? We're due to restart teaching on the 17th.

It's somewhat ominous that the rumour is to make the first 3 weeks online only rather than delaying the start of semester (which I reckon would be doable - it just means eating into the spring/summer breaks a little to complete exam boards and the like).

Starting online makes it easier to continue online...

[scottsdad]

3 minutes ago, The Master said:

Not all universities have the same term dates do they? We're due to restart teaching on the 17th.

It's somewhat ominous that the rumour is to make the first 3 weeks online only rather than delaying the start of semester (which I reckon would be doable - it just means eating into the spring/summer breaks a little to complete exam boards and the like).

Starting online makes it easier to continue online...

My feeling is they will say something like "online only till the end of January, followed by a review" - which will drag on and so the whole semester will be online. 

Delaying the start date of semester would be almost impossible for some places. For us, that would push back the exam board dates (which are already very tight), and then into the summer postgraduate dissertations, and so on and so on. I think a "pivot" to online is what they will do, as it has been described to us.

[EvilScotsman]

6 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

My feeling is they will say something like "online only till the end of January, followed by a review" - which will drag on and so the whole semester will be online. 

Delaying the start date of semester would be almost impossible for some places. For us, that would push back the exam board dates (which are already very tight), and then into the summer postgraduate dissertations, and so on and so on. I think a "pivot" to online is what they will do, as it has been described to us.

I think we'll be the same. The only certain thing is that the decision will be taken too late to adequately prepare.

[The Master]

4 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

My feeling is they will say something like "online only till the end of January, followed by a review" - which will drag on and so the whole semester will be online. 

Delaying the start date of semester would be almost impossible for some places. For us, that would push back the exam board dates (which are already very tight), and then into the summer postgraduate dissertations, and so on and so on. I think a "pivot" to online is what they will do, as it has been described to us.

That's true; I was looking at things from an UG perspective, but you're right that PG has tighter deadlines with little wriggle room.

Och well. At least I can re-use most of my recorded lectures from last January...

[scottsdad]

My classes are all in semester 1 and so I have quite enjoyed being in a room with students again. Still a hybrid model - they watch the recorded lectures then come to class for a tutorial, with some students all remote.

I would be quite unhappy if I was doing all my teaching in semester 2, planned for face to face in semester 2, then at the last minute had to go back to doing the DJ thing of talking into a laptop.

[scottsdad]

I have been marking relentlessly for about 6 weeks. I came across a few exam papers that looked very weird. Odd answers - but all very similar. 

I googled the exam question and it popped up on a contract cheating site. I looked deeper at this site and all my lecture slides are there, all my notes, past papers - everything I have on the VLE has been uploaded. More than that someone has uploaded the exam questions and received an answer. I tried to log on to see what this answer is (and if it is the same as these weird looking papers) and the site wanted me to either pay to see it, or upload 5 documents from my course. 

I created 5 documents that were full of gibberish hoping this would be automated. The site rejected these. 

So anyway, putting the disciplinary paperwork in for these students (if they haven't used this site, they have at least colluded on their exams). And now the university executive is in touch with the site seeking these answers. 

For any students (or future students) thinking about this, let me explain the difference. Collusion means you fail the exam and have to resit and have this on your record. Contract cheating gets you expelled. 

Not sure how prevalent this is across universities/colleges. But it is bloody annoying to put this work in for it all to appear online. 

[BFTD]

Never mind the morality of it, I don't understand the point of that kind of cheating. Eventually you're going to end up in a job where you can't just blag your way out of your ignorance. I'd find that horrifically embarrassing, but I guess that kind of humiliation doesn't bother some people.

Every now and then I'll check in on a programming website that features examples of people who are really bad at their job, and occasionally they'll have stories about folk who clearly know nothing about it at all. They just arrive and pretend to work, hoping to make it to pay day before someone notices. Mental.

[scottsdad]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

Never mind the morality of it, I don't understand the point of that kind of cheating. Eventually you're going to end up in a job where you can't just blag your way out of your ignorance. I'd find that horrifically embarrassing, but I guess that kind of humiliation doesn't bother some people.

Every now and then I'll check in on a programming website that features examples of people who are really bad at their job, and occasionally they'll have stories about folk who clearly know nothing about it at all. They just arrive and pretend to work, hoping to make it to pay day before someone notices. Mental.

We have many postgraduate students from poor backgrounds. In many cases their families have mortgaged their houses to send them to a UK university. The reward is huge should such a student come home with an MSc from the UK, or even stay in the UK to work and send money home. 

Conversely the pressure on these guys is huge. They literally cannot afford to fail. Even a resit that means staying in the UK for a few extra months can be ruinous. So many take the easy option of what is seen as a guaranteed pass. 

In the last few years I have been involved in expelling quite a few such students. It is horrible, and when they realise the implications it is like the bottom falling out of their world. 

[BFTD]

1 minute ago, scottsdad said:

We have many postgraduate students from poor backgrounds. In many cases their families have mortgaged their houses to send them to a UK university. The reward is huge should such a student come home with an MSc from the UK, or even stay in the UK to work and send money home. 

Conversely the pressure on these guys is huge. They literally cannot afford to fail. Even a resit that means staying in the UK for a few extra months can be ruinous. So many take the easy option of what is seen as a guaranteed pass. 

In the last few years I have been involved in expelling quite a few such students. It is horrible, and when they realise the implications it is like the bottom falling out of their world. 

Yikes. I always figured that international students would be more likely to keep their noses clean, but I suppose you don't know what's going on in the background.

[scottsdad]

Just now, BFTD said:

Yikes. I always figured that international students would be more likely to keep their noses clean, but I suppose you don't know what's going on in the background.

In the grand scheme of things, we are talking about a tiny percentage of the student population. But in my experience, the vast majority of cases like this are from international postgraduate students. 

Scottish undergraduates who end up before the committee tend to go for straight collusion or copying and pasting from places like UKessays. 

[Satoshi]

7 hours ago, BFTD said:

Never mind the morality of it, I don't understand the point of that kind of cheating. Eventually you're going to end up in a job where you can't just blag your way out of your ignorance. I'd find that horrifically embarrassing, but I guess that kind of humiliation doesn't bother some people.

Every now and then I'll check in on a programming website that features examples of people who are really bad at their job, and occasionally they'll have stories about folk who clearly know nothing about it at all. They just arrive and pretend to work, hoping to make it to pay day before someone notices. Mental.

Can you share the wesbite? As someone who is also bad at their job I would be quite keen to see if others are actually worse than me.

Also on copying, I left school after 5th year and some of my friends from school were in the same uni classes as me when I was a second year and they were first years. For their first essay I was happy to share my complete one a few days in advance so they could see the differences school vs uni and I think at least two of them completed it almost verbatim (and even gave it to some other idiot). Weirdly the grades received ranged quite a bit (with mine top!). 

Nothing came of it but I was livid and totally prepared to shop all the b*****ds for copying my work - I could point to me sending the email to them a few days in advance as advice, not to copy. Still, it probably would have come under the collusion mentioned above, this was about 10 years ago and it did go through turniturn without any issues (or at least mine did...)

Of the copiers, 1 needed an extra year for their honours degree, 1 didn't graduate and the other did fine. I'll put it down to very green undergraduates being a bit daft and treating it as school with more freedom. I obviously never helped them or anyone else again.

 

[hk blues]

16 hours ago, BFTD said:

Never mind the morality of it, I don't understand the point of that kind of cheating. Eventually you're going to end up in a job where you can't just blag your way out of your ignorance. I'd find that horrifically embarrassing, but I guess that kind of humiliation doesn't bother some people.

Every now and then I'll check in on a programming website that features examples of people who are really bad at their job, and occasionally they'll have stories about folk who clearly know nothing about it at all. They just arrive and pretend to work, hoping to make it to pay day before someone notices. Mental.

It would depend on what is being studied - most (all?) of what I studied was of zero value to me when I started working so Had I cheated it wouldn't have mattered.  

What do the Americans say - "Fake it until you make it?"  - seems to be a mantra for many.

[vikingTON]

Contract cheating is the inevitable end product of society treating HE as a job factory and students being understood as 'customers' - as much by fleecing university management as any other group.

Once a market has been set it's no surprise that people will seek to game and/or buy their way to progression. 

[scottsdad]

That's the paperwork in now. That is the end of my involvement - as the "reporter", I'm not in the next stages of the disciplinary cases.

But sometimes a student who cheats in my class will also cheat in someone else's, and so I end up doing the hearing for them for that one. 

I know that there are a fair few students and future students on here. My advice is - don't cheat. Don't even contemplate passing off someone else's work as your own. You might get away with it, but if you don't the consequences can be catastrophic. Even so you'll be wondering if the hammer will ever fall. And, finally, you get the results and with it a hollow feeling that you didn't earn it. 

Note to @Satoshi - had a case like yours last year. We interviewed the older student who had done the work and shared the work with the younger students. The older student had done nothing wrong. He wasn't punished at all. The younger ones who copied his work had to resit and were given a new topic. 

[Florentine_Pogen]

@scottsdad, am I right in assuming that your lecture notes etc. ended up on a cheatsite due to being uploaded by a student when they were asked to 'submit 5 papers from your course'.??

[scottsdad]

1 minute ago, Florentine_Pogen said:

@scottsdad, am I right in assuming that your lecture notes etc. ended up on a cheatsite due to being uploaded by a student when they were asked to 'submit 5 papers from your course'.??

Yes, exactly.