Computer Science Students Outsource Homework

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "'If U.S. companies can go online to outsource their programming, why can't U.S. computer students outsource their homework--which, after all, often involves writing sample programs?' Wall Street Journal colummnist Lee Gomes asks. 'Scruples aside, no reason at all. Search for "homework" in the data base of Rent A Coder projects, and you get 1,000 hits. (An impressive number, but still a tiny fraction of all computer students, the vast majority of whom are no doubt an honest and hardworking lot.)' Some of the Rent a Coder users appear to be outsourcing their way through school, at low costs--probably less than $100 per assignment. The posting are, of course, anonymous, but Gomes traces one to a student at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where an instructor tells him that Rent a Coder contributed to a problem of plagiarism last semester."

Comments

Re:Why bother?

[Valar]

Well, even for other reasons than catching plagarism, making students explain code is a good idea. Firstly, it builds up their communications skills. Secondly, it catches shotgun debugs (I'll just twiddle everything around until it works). Thirdly, students shouldn't write "crazy code" that they can't explain. If they can't explain it, it isn't maintainable. Nobody is going to want to see that in real life. Teach them while they are young. Fourthly, it catches code that accidentally get right, as in, they misunderstand some concept, but manage a working solution anyway. Next time they won't be as lucky and by not making them explain code, you miss a chance to correct their error which wouldn't show up in your test cases.