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

Bigger Fish to Fry...

[Chris Bradshaw]

The obvious answer to the question is Hell NO! Students need to do their own work so that the University granting $StudentX with a degree doesn't loose credibility by certifying that "$GraduateX is now Capable of doing the job" when he really doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.

What really needs to be done is for instructors to wake up and realize that most people don't even need to outsource in order to complete thier projects. After all, who needs to pay a "Rent-A-Coder" when so many instructors provide obvious shortcuts via working examples of the projects right along the assignment, i.e., Java classes, etc... Why "outsource" when you can decompile Jad, change a few variable names and viola! Project Complete.

To really combat plagarism, instructors should focus more on theory, algorithms, deisgn patterns, etc.., and less on the actual solution to a particular problem in $programmingLanguage. If you really must assign projects, insert subtle flaws or traps in the assignment that would make the project all but impossible w/out direct interaction with the Professor to clarify requirments, etc... This would expose the weak students, the obvious cheats. and give a clearer picture of what's really going on in the classroom. Problem is there are too many instructors out there who just don't care, and aren't in it for the right reasons. In other words, they just don't care!

Disgusting!

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

Why in the old days we had to post the problems on USENET and hope not to get *plonked*! Kids today are sooo spoiled.

great idea!

[pohl]

I want to become a really great guitarist. Maybe I can hire someone else to practice all those tedious scales, arpeggios, and chords. When they're done, I'll be able to play like Steve Vai!

Saw this on Elance too

[zjbs14]

I saw an Elance posting once for an obvious CS student project. Funny thing was that I recognized the professor's name as being from my alma mater, so I sent him an email with the project link.

Th better part was that the student also used his real name in the listing.

Re:Why bother?

[19061969]

They're aiming for middle management.

Re:Why bother?

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

Why even bother getting the degree in something if you don't want to do the work anyway?

Because Universities have become the 13th grade, a prerequisite for even unskilled labor. A bachelors degree is worth about the same as a a high school diploma was worth 50 years ago.

Re:Why bother?

[general_re]

Besides the fact that you won't have a clue what you're doing since you'll never have learned anything, if you don't have any desire to do it in the first place, why are you in the field?

The types of people who cheat in their CS courses are likely the types of people who'd cheat regardless of their chosen field. My wife teaches history (on the high school level, though), and there's just been an explosion of plagiarism in the last few years or so - it's just tremendously easy and tempting to CTRL-C CTRL-V some website into your paper.

Of course, what these knuckleheads don't realize is that the same developments that make it easy for them to cheat also make tremendously easy to catch cheaters - there have been course sections where literally half the class has gotten caught with a hand in the cookie jar, and it really, really makes me wonder what the fuck these kids are thinking. Forget about not learning the tools for your career - some of them are bound and determined not to learn a goddamn thing, period.

Re:Likely not a problem overall

[NeoSkandranon]

The times are gone when most people in CS are geeks.

Many, many, *many* are in it for the money, or because people keep telling them computers are the place to be. I'm in computer engineering myself, but I've had to take up through jr level comp sci courses, and in each and every one I see people who fail to exhibit basic programming knowledge, or only a middling skill level in using the computer in general.

Re:Why bother?

[jcr]

Easier than that... Just call them up randomly to walk the class through their code, and explain what the code that they ostensibly wrote does.

-jcr

Re:Not a major concern

[TubeSteak]

I had a teacher that let you decide your own groups, but with the understanding that along with the final paper/presentation/whatever, you would 'grade' your fellow group members.

You had 100 points to split up between everyone in the group and he'd add up the seperate 'grades' for each student and then multiply the final grade by that number.

So if the group paper was worth a 74% and your group 'grade' was a 94%... you'd get a 70%

It gave you the opportunity to penalize the asshats who weren't pulling their weight. And the people who did outstanding work could get a grade higher than 100%.

Wrong Major, obviously

[Lead Butthead]

It's fairly clear that particular person should've majored in Business Administration, not Computer Science.

Re:Why bother?

[arcsine]

Cheaters are everywhere, that's for sure. I was a teacher's assistant several years ago. I graded all the programs and quizes. My personal policy was to report every cheater. Generally we had them put on academic probation and removed from the class. I've caught 4-5. I only had 30 assignments to grade normally, so I had a pretty good memory of what someone did. I caught two because they had the exact same comments for their program, and upon closer inspection, had nearly the same program. The professor was a bit gunshy, and didn't have them removed from class. However, after I caught one of the students cheating with another, I at least got one removed from the class.

You have to a zero tolerance policy, otherwise students will think that they can get away with it.

good experience

[www.sorehands.com]

Outsourcing your homework is good experience for middle management. That way, when they get their job, they have experience in outsourcing programming and getting poor quality code back.

Re:good experience

[pete6677]

Outsourcing a coding assignment should be a requirement of any MIS / MBA program, in order to give students some real-world applicable experience.

It's not the CS students that are cheating..

[damne33]

At least at Carnegie Mellon, where programming courses were required for a vast majority of the students. Majored in Bio, History, Business..? Yup, you had to take programming. To me it seemed that these people were the ones that were likely to get someone else to do their programming assignments for them. The students who majored in CS? yeah, right.