Non-Technological Ways to Combat Cheating?

blackcoot asks: "I'm currently T.A.ing for a required senior level class in algorithms. Having just graded the latest set of homework, I'm amused / sickened (can't make up my mind on that one) at the level of cheating. Slashdot has covered automated cheating detection in the past here and here, but I'm hoping to find some (necessarily nontech) ways of encouraging students to be a bit more honest (or at least a little less spectacularly stupid in how they cheat). I've been reporting the cheating as I've found it to the relevant profs, but it doesn't seem to be having much of an effect. Any suggestions?"

Comments

Zeros

[Dancin_Santa]

Give them zeros each and every time you find one of them cheating. They can appeal if they think it's unfair.

Forcing them to admit cheating

[Tal Cohen]

Here's something I've used while I was a TA. You could say it is a little ugly, but it worked like a charm.

After every assignment in which I have detected cheating, I have published a note (to the course email list) that went something like that:

During the checking of your submissions, some instances of cheating (copying) were detected. In all such cases, both sides (the copier and the source) will be graded zero, unless you approach me and let me know who really solved the assignment, and who copied. In this case, only the cheater will be graded zero; the source will be given his fair grade.

It worked. It worked like a charm. For every submission that I suspected was a copy of somebody else's work, one of the students came up and admitted cheating (they were often pressed to do that by their friends). They had the most pathetic excuses, of course, but that's beside the matter. The bonus part is, many students approached me and admitted cheatings that I didn't detect.

Re:Forcing them to admit cheating

[shachart]

Two comments:

1. Being a student of the former poster (Hey Tal, enjoyed your physics exercises :), while currently not having mod points, I can vouch that it was the case. I know more than a single set of a cheater and a cheatee who approached him and told the truth.

2. Being a TA myself (CS, though), I tried the following approach - every student writes the names of the students around him, in all 8 directions, in a specially drawn 3x3 box. Now, this killed 99% of cheating, as we TAs could get a quick verification of cheating suspects. It also helped us recognize cheating, since we could check the tests in the order of seating. This, coupled with Tal's method, could probably locate almost all cheaters.