IT Students Contract Out Coursework To India

An anonymous reader writes "Students studying computing in the UK and US are outsourcing their university coursework to graduates in India and Romania. Work is being contracted out for as little as £5 on contract coding websites usually used by businesses. Students are outsourcing everything from simple coursework to full blown final year dissertations. It's causing a major headache for lecturers who say it is almost impossible to detect." The irony, of course, is that if they actually get jobs in the sector, this will be how they actually work anyway.

Comments

Just deserts...

[blahplusplus]

... this is what you get in a competitive society where anyone will do their damndest to avoid poverty.

Re:Just deserts...

[ettlz]

Are there deserts in India? I'm sure there aren't any in Romania.

Re:Just deserts...

[apodyopsis]

Really?

I would of phrased that another way.

..this is what you get in a society when everybody believes that they deserve everything and yet everybody is unwilling to do any hard work.

Re:Just deserts...

[phoenix_nz]

What I don't understand is how could you possibly hand in a postgraduate dissertation which you didn't write.

Undergrad stuff, sure. There you have a few hundred students to a professor/lecturer. But postgrad?
My supervisor had exactly one student doing postgrad - me. Sure, some supervisors had up to 20 students, but still they knew exactly what those students were capable of. Someone handing in work that isn't theirs can't happen in such a situation

So maybe this isn't the result of "a competitive society where anyone will do their damndest to avoid poverty," but instead the result of an extremely bad student to supervisor ratio.

The solution? I guess either pay more money to Universities to get more lecturers, or FLAMEBAIT make courses harder so that only few students survive END FLAMEBAIT.

Re:Just deserts...

[sticks_us]

What I don't understand is how could you possibly hand in a postgraduate dissertation which you didn't write....

I agree, however, my Ph. D. adviser once offered to write my dissertation for $3,000, which at the time (being a poor student), was a ridiculous amount of money (and immoral to boot).

In retrospect, I should've taken a loan and paid him to do it, it would've been easier and far more ethical than actually writing it myself.

Re:Just deserts...

[Anonymous Coward]

>..this is what you get in a society when everybody believes that they deserve everything and yet everybody is unwilling to do any hard work.

Funny, I would have said this is what you get in a society that values a piece of paper over hard work.

You can work 10x harder, 10x faster, and 10x smarter than the guy next to you, but if you didn't finish high-school/college/university, you won't get the better job.

Re:Just deserts...

[Slashidiot]

That last bit is the way things work in some other places, like Spain. Not in all universities, sure, but for example, speaking from experience, studying Civil Engineering in Madrid works like that. For starters, the undergraduate courses are a minimum of six years, plus the final project. And on the first year, with 400 new students, they separate by means of exams that only around 10 people pass, out of 400. On the easier subjects (like algebra), almost 40 to 50% people pass. This way, the result is that it takes an average of 8 or 9 years to finish (to those who finish, that is around 40% of the initial 400), but people are very well prepared to work under stress, and work hard.

So the idea is that if you get to the end of it, you might not know a lot about actually being a civil engineer, but you certainly have proved that you can work hard.

Re:Just deserts...

[trolltalk.com]

I agree, however, my Ph. D. adviser once offered to write my dissertation for $3,000, which at the time (being a poor student), was a ridiculous amount of money (and immoral to boot).

In retrospect, I should've taken a loan and paid him to do it, it would've been easier and far more ethical than actually writing it myself.

If you think that's ethical, you deserve whatever shit life hands you.

What you should have done was gotten the offer on tape, and reported him/her. This would have served the purpose of leveling the playing field, so that those who are ethically corrupt and financially flush (funny how the two seem to go hand-in-hand a lot of times) don't have an unfair advantage.

Re:Just deserts...

[nine-times]

I would have said something more like:

... this is what you get in a competitive society where everyone is taught that "work" is an evil thing to be avoided at all costs.

That assumes we're talking about the US of course. We Americans are really proud of our work ethic, yet we teach our children that work is evil, struggling is stupid, and the ideal situation is one where everyone is handed everything on a silver platter.

Really, if you look at what's being taught by parents and by the public school system, that's one of the chief messages we send to our kids. It wasn't until I got into college (a small private college) that I realized that there was actually value in the work itself. That sometimes (particularly in education) end-result (i.e. good grades and eventually a degree) isn't the most important thing.

I mean, you listen to people talk, and they talk about how college is great because it opens so many doors, and a college diploma provides so many opportunities. That's all backwards. College is great because it is, in itself, a great opportunity to learn how to work your ass off in a grown-up environment, but before consequences really come into play. If you're not working your ass off, you're missing out on the best opportunity college can provide.

Re:Just deserts...

[sticks_us]

If you think that's ethical, you deserve whatever shit life hands you.

What you should have done was gotten the offer on tape, and reported him/her. This would have served the purpose of leveling the playing field, so that those who are ethically corrupt and financially flush (funny how the two seem to go hand-in-hand a lot of times) don't have an unfair advantage.

Well, I don't think paying someone to do it is ethical, but I also believe a lot of dissertation work gets done under shifty circumstances (or, at the very least, requiring an inordinate amount of humiliation, degradation, and ass-kissing). So I guess it becomes a "lesser of two evils" thing.

As for getting it on tape--you're 110% correct. I kick myself to this day for not having a portable recorder.

Re:Just deserts...

[zifn4b]

..this is what you get in a society when everybody believes that they deserve everything and yet everybody is unwilling to do any hard work.

I disagree. I think what's happening is that society is becoming wise to common business practices. They realize that businesses have absolutely no loyalty to their employees. The employees at a company are merely a means to generate shareholder value. Make no mistake, they will cut your benefits, lay you off, not follow through on promises if it's in the interest of their bottom line.

State and Federal governments are really no different. For the most part, they placate the masses just enough to move their own agendas forward whether they're in your best interest of not.

This is raising a generation of people that see no reason not to cheat the system because they watch corporations and government do it all the time. They wonder why they should uphold a standard of honor that no one else is and have it be at their own expense.

Re:Just deserts...

[Sesticulus]

I'm confused, did something change? Historically they went into management.

Re:Just deserts...

[Free the Cowards]

College is great because it is, in itself, a great opportunity to learn how to work your ass off in a grown-up environment, but before consequences really come into play. If you're not working your ass off, you're missing out on the best opportunity college can provide. That's the dumbest thing I've heard all day. If this is the best opportunity that college can provide, there's no reason to go. Get a job! Then you can not only learn how to work your ass off in a grown-up environment, you can get paid for it too!

The point of college is to gain an education and grow intellectually. Learning how to get stuff done is certainly part of it, but it's not the only, or even the biggest, part of it. If that's all you need then there's no need to pay for the experience.

Re:Just deserts...

[gv250]

My high school math teacher announced, on the first day of class, that he would be willing to take a bribe to give an 'A' to any student.

His price? Significantly more than the present value of all his future earnings for the rest of his life.

I'm not sure if the lesson was one of consequences (you can lose your job for cheating) or math (what is the P.V. of a series of payments?).

Re:Just deserts...

[aztracker1]

Well, personally I have been doing a *LOT* of reading on those areas that I want to work in... I look for personal projects that can take advantage of newer, or newly learned technology. Participating on FLOSS, or even volunteering with a non-profit agency works as well. Getting a super low-level grunt job, and taking on extra responsibilities is probably the best potential for a foot in the door.

I'm now pretty well off in my field, but it takes hard work, and time one way or another... it's not impossible, or even all that hard to get your foot in the door. To be honest though, it takes about as much time to gain "experience" as you would have taken going through college, but after 5+ years or so, it balances out.

The other aspect is truly understanding what it is you are going to be doing. For programmers it comes down to not just knowing your language(s) of choice, but knowing something about software design. Reading "Learn X in 24hrs" isn't enough, reading up on RAD, or Agile principles is equally, or more important. Understanding data models, etc... Starting off with a good basic understanding of a given language is generally enough to get you in the door somewhere.

In interviews, if you don't know something, don't pretend you do. Say you don't know it, if you can speculate, state that what you are saying is speculation. Then move on to the next question. The fact is nobody can possibly know everything, especially in IT, as the entire base of knowledge and/or techniques grows exponentially. You're better off having a good base of knowledge, at least exposure, or knowledge of different systems, and the ability to learn and adapt quickly. IT is as much thinking around problems as it is working through them.

Re:Just deserts...

[GospelHead821]

It bears mentioning that, because of the global nature of many corporations, the work that most people do is impersonal and uninspiring. Assembly line structures may be efficient ways to generate wealth but I have grown tired of our society that defines value in terms of wealth.

I can certainly sympathize with somebody who sees hard work as evil, if his work provides value for somebody he never sees and is measured based upon the amount of wealth that it generates. That really is evil, in my opinion.

Re:Just deserts...

[nine-times]

If you just want to say that someone can do something bad with the product of your work, or that it's possible for workers to be alienated in some way, I wouldn't disagree.

My point about work isn't whether it's "evil" in the sense that the devil is "evil", but that people treat it as an "evil", or a "bad thing". It's like, if you ask someone to work on something, you're punishing them. As though we would be best served by avoiding work whenever possible.

I'm not in favor of working stupidly or inefficiently, but some kind of "work" is essential for a healthy psyche. It actually isn't good for people to have nothing to do, no goals to achieve. It's often bad for people to take the "easy way out", and failing to "try your best" for an extended period of time will make a person deficient in a number of ways.

Work is good. Work is healthy. Having accomplished something after a lot of work with bring about the most satisfying feeling you'll ever feel in your life. And we're depriving ourselves of that by considering people "lucky" who can sit around on their ass without a care in the world.

Re:Just deserts...

[nine-times]

That's the dumbest thing I've heard all day. If this is the best opportunity that college can provide, there's no reason to go. Get a job! Then you can not only learn how to work your ass off in a grown-up environment, you can get paid for it too!

And then, because there will be consequences, you'll be incredibly limited in what you can do and which sorts of work you can try out. Once you're saddled with all those consequences, you really will have to focus on accomplishing things and not screwing up. You'll have to focus on the end-results specifically. And because you don't have experience and don't know how to work correctly, an awful lot of the fun work is going to be kept away from you because you can't be trusted to do it.

College, on the other hand, is the perfect place to gain the experience of working in a wide variety of contexts on a wide variety of tasks. In my job, if I'm not a good presenter, then any decent boss will keep me away from presenting. A college class that involves presentations is going to be my best opportunity to work on presentations and get good at them before it matters.

I have never met anyone who doesn't screw up royally on their first job, and sometimes that sort of thing can virtually ruin a career. If you do it right, college can be like being your own boss, running your own projects, and working in the way that work really should be done.

Re:Just deserts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually there is a desert in Romania in the southern part, called "Oltenia's desert". Nothing impressive, but quite close to a desert.

Re:Just deserts...

[Free the Cowards]

Why is this site full of such dumbfucks? I mean, seriously. You could find a higher average intelligence in an ant farm.

Where did I say that I did no work? Oh that's right, I never said that. You just made it up, then acted like I said it because, I dunno, you're a total jackass.

I worked hard in college, but that was not why I was there. I was there to get an education. The work was a necessary component, not a goal.

Re:Just deserts...

[emilper]

My high school physics teacher showed us once, with practical examples, that he knows a lot more ways to cheat than we do. Even showed us a few very effective ways we did not know and could not have imagined without special technical knowledge. That day was the last time I attempted to cheat in school ... was 13 at that time.

Pathetic

[kmsigel]

I have always written programs because it is fun and rewarding. That was true in middle school, true in high school, true in college, and true now (I'm close to 40). When it's not fun I'll stop doing it. How is paying someone else to write your programs fun? How is it rewarding? It's not; it is just pathetic.

Re:Pathetic

[phpmysqldev]

We always got quizzed and had to explain our logic, etc after turning in a major project. Just because you can produce a working program doesn't mean you understand the concept, outsourced or not.

Re:Pathetic

[snl2587]

Really, this is nothing more than an indicator that some people going into programming are clearly in the wrong field.

That being said, I don't know anyone personally who is becoming a programmer for any other reason than they really enjoy it. Kind of sucks if you don't.

Re:Pathetic

[darthflo]

Let's see...
Earn, say, $5000 per Month working on something for two months.
Pay, say, $3000 for that project to be done in India or wherever.
Make $7k (per concurrent employment) while at the same time programming whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it. Sure sounds like a ton of fun.

Re:Pathetic

[v1k]

How long before your contract realizes they too can send it to India and get it done for $3000, leaving you with $0?

Re:Pathetic

[Drakonik]

Really, this is nothing more than an indicator that some people going into programming are clearly in the wrong field. Clearly, they belong in management.

Re:Pathetic

[TheLink]

They might not want to manage the outsourcee, etc.

Re:Pathetic

[ZeroExistenZ]

Just because you can produce a working program doesn't mean you understand the concept, outsourced or not.

Yes, agreed. But there's a difference between logical reasoning and understanding and actual implementation.

Basically you're saying, in this context; "I understand the logical approach. So there's no need for me to put time in implementing it. A monkey without any sense of logic could produce a program with the same output."

So you'd like someone, who you value "unable to understand the deeper underlaying logic", to write your program representing the way you understood the problem and how it could be solved?

It's to me also a very troubling progress; people being trained to become programmers or who will have to program, but already ,before being skilled enough or having any experience, have the attitude "oh, I can outsource it!". Once those end up in the industry, what are those worth? "I can't be bothered with it. Let them outsource it"... And everyone throws their arms in the ari "oh noes, were are our jobs going?"

Having done alot of projects "in the real world", it's rarely who put the project together who are the ones brainstorming how to make it fit more logcally without breaking the design. Those "finger in air"-documents, created by those with a simular attitude, without practical "hands on" knowledge *think* it's all fitting as a glove. But once you try to implement it you're bumping into alot of surprices and burning money with heaps.
Ideally someone with alot of practical knowledge should lead these sorts of projects just for this reason. But where are you at when you're even not willing to gather a bit of experience, because it seems "unnecessary"?
It's a combination of experience and skill (ability to logically understand the whole), to verify your analysis into practice, link back and evolve in your skillsets that help you to be better at what you do.

I've stood at both sides in projects, and it's also not as straightforwards to come up with something that works perfectly. It all might be very logical, it's not definite and bringing it into being, you always have a surprice here and there.

There's never perfection and you never know enough, each day I still learn and finetune my skills. If you're starting to outsource your potential even before you can assign yourself a certain title, it's a bit of a dubious thing to do.

It reminds me of this engineer, taking huge pride in a job well done after his equations and calculations were all perfectly done, with added whitenoise buffers calculated to the point he felt he could be pleased with himself and nothing could go wrong. The moment his creation came into being, he spent weeks finding the "sweetspot" to make it work. His clash with the "pure theory and logic" and the actual world were a tough lesson.

Re:Pathetic

[mmkkbb]

Never, because you charge $5000, kick back $1000 to the guy who signs the paycheck, and send it to India for $3000, pocketing $1000. This is not a new phenomenon, and is probably in every ethics textbook and training course.

Re:Pathetic

[FictionPimp]

How is this different then me starting a company, getting hired by another company to make X for 5000.00 and paying my workers 3000.00 for actually doing it?

The difference is my workers are not local but in india. So the same reason companies don't snipe workers from local business is the same reason they won't just go straight to india.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

We always got quizzed and had to explain our logic, etc after turning in a major project. Just because you can produce a working program doesn't mean you understand the concept, outsourced or not. Unfortunately, in my classes that's not the case. My classes have been made up of programming majors who hate to write code. They all copy-and-paste each others' code, turn it in, and the instructor doesn't ask any questions about it.

It also doesn't help that the "instructor" comes in hungover and in lieu of teaching, she basically has people type code along with her, without explaining any of the theory. She also just gives us powerpoint slides.

I've pretty much been teaching myself programming on my own.

An excellent argument...

[slk]

This is an excellent argument for the practical interview; instead of just asking questions, have somebody actually show you what they know.

Mind you, this is also a good argument for forcing students to show their intermediate work (design, etc) and to do said intermediate work with pen and paper. It's a lot harder to outsource something that would be in the wrong handwriting and have to be Fedex'd from India.

Re:An excellent argument...

[AmIAnAi]

This is an excellent argument for the practical interview; instead of just asking questions, have somebody actually show you what they know.

I recently interviewed a couple of Masters graduates who both claimed to be profficient in C. Their accademic background and work experience gave no reason to doubt this. However, when confronted with a practical test, both made fundamental errors and struggled with the more complicated questions.

Re:An excellent argument...

[CastrTroy]

I like the idea, but requiring people to handwrite papers probably wouldn't do much to stop the whole thing. You could easily get the guy in India to show all his work, scan it, and send the files to you. Then all you have to do is copy it verbatim. I knew a girl who had a professor who insisted that papers be handwritten, saying something about curbing cheaters. Really, it made people more likely to cheat, because of the increased time it would take for them to write it out by hand. I think most people in her class just wrote the whole thing on the computer, which made editing easier, and then copied out the final product. The whole process just makes it harder on the honest students. I think that a good solution, is to place way more emphasis on exams or other more verifiable means of grading students.

Re:An excellent argument...

[Dolohov]

Eh, this is common, and not necessarily indicative of a lie. I've written a lot of C code in my time, but for the last four months my job has had me writing only Java -- if someone were to sit me down to do a practical C test, I'd probably do pretty poorly after being out of it (and thinking in OO mode) for so long. If you're getting people just out of their Masters, you're getting people who had to stop what they were doing and write a Master's thesis, which seems to me like a similar obstacle to proper thinking.

Re:An excellent argument...

[SatanicPuppy]

Anyway, can you imagine handwritten assignments in Comp sci? Have you seen the handwriting of the average CS geek?

My wierd liberal-arty background puts me in the top tier of CS handwriting (erratic but occasionally legible) but the fast majority of my peers fall into the average bracket (incomprehensible scrawl), and there are plenty who sink to the darkest depths (febrile 2 year old, epileptic with dyslexia) from whence no meaning can be derived.

If it weren't for keyboards, none of us would be able to convey our ideas in written form.

Re:An excellent argument...

[wattrlz]

If that is the case then it isn't a well-designed practical. Anybody who knows a language should be able to read some code and solve a few problems. You can't expect many interviewees to be able to churn out work up to company standards at the interview, and you shouldn't be looking for that unless you don't allow people any time to come up to speed.

Re:An excellent argument...

[raddan]

Also, the problem domain in C *really* influences the style of code. And by style, I don't just mean do you write braces on the same line or next line, I mean:

• Do you rely on the preprocessor for common constants and macros?
• How many system facilities do you need to use?
• Are you going to attempt an object-oriented approach?
• Who else is reading your code?
• What is the expected lifetime of the program?

The answers to these questions and many more can dramatically affect how a program in C is put together. I thought I was a pretty good C programmer until I recently started having to do some systems programming. It's like a completely different language now.

Re:An excellent argument...

[SatanicPuppy]

It was that way where I was (in the US); doesn't help that I'm a wordy bastard either. I used to resort to writing in script because my cursive is more legible than the bastard hybrid of print and cursive I normally write in.

That's relative though. I had a prof complain about the cursive, so I switched to my "default" handwriting, and then he complained about that, despite my habit of writing the uppercase and lowercase alphabet on the top of the first page of every blue book, as a decryption key. The only thing my writing has going for it is that my default font size is about 16pt, so at least it's big.

Re:An excellent argument...

[Bat Country]

Actually, we had hand-written panic-mode program design tests where we were asked to write somewhat esoteric structures on most of my CS tests.

If the answer is illegible, you don't get a grade.

You'd be surprised just how legible the handwriting of even the worst scrawler becomes when it's a pass/fail situation hinging on their penmanship.

Re:An excellent argument...

[Ahnteis]

>>So the moral of the story is, if the chair of the dept is teaching one of your courses, no matter how stupid you think he is, or his teaching ability, or how easy the course work is, attend every frikin' calls, smile, kiss ass, and don't do anything to get his ire, as you may regret it down the line.

This moral translates well into many careers! :)

So talk to the student?

[Toad-san]

If the coursework / dissertation seems out of line with the student's "normal" performance .. hey, take five minutes (with the work in front of you, not in front of him), and ask him a few questions about it.

How long will it take to determine he doesn't know squat about what he turned in, eh?

Well...

[Comatose51]

Well, they might as well start early and get into the practice of out-sourcing.

"£100 for postgraduate dissertations."

Seriously!? If those dissertations are any good, we might as well go directly to the source and hire those guys to do R & D for us.

Re:Well...

[RMH101]

Any good? No, but they'll be just about acceptable and they're cheap: which as any Finance Director knows, will be good enough for a couple of years, whilst he writes on his CV that he's saved X million USD and the company turns to crap around him.

You mean there are companies that *don't* do this?

Universities~=Corporate america

[COMON$]

I see this as a direct result of the overloading of the Universities. When you have a prof teaching classrooms of 400 students, checking for cheating becomes practically impossible. I went to a smaller university where the ratio was significantly smaller. The profs could tell if another student wrote your code by style. That and in my university you had to comment like a mad fool, which depending on who you outsourced to might be a dead giveaway.

I recently read one of Feynnman's books and as odd a character he is, I think he hit the nail on the head when talking about how teachers today simply dish out information and the students memorize. This has lent to a society where students know they are going to forget the courseload in a month so why not have someone else do the work for you. College is all about the piece of paper now adays anyway so you can get a higher paying job. At least that is the way the universities seem to present themselves in their advertisements.

You want to keep students from outsourcing? Push them harder, teach rather than have them memorize, administratively, get more teachers. Universities should be hard, people should drop out, if you are not passionate about the subject then head to Vo-Tech. I want universities to go back to learning institutions rather than the factories they have become.

Re:Universities~=Corporate america

[kellyb9]

Sir, you are dead on. Just to add a little bit, I feel as though colleges have become far to lenient with who they are letting in. The standards have dropped much lower because it's becoming nearly impossible to find decent work without a B.S. in something. Colleges need to raise their standards. There are simply far too many areas of study where doing the bare minimum will afford you a decent grade. It almost seems that you need to go on with your education anymore to learn anything useful.

Re:Universities~=Corporate america

[legoman666]

There are simply far too many areas of study where doing the bare minimum will afford you a decent grade. I am proof of that. I don't do jack shit and managed a 3.5 last quarter. Now I'm cooping and I still don't do jack shit and make 18+/hour. It's great.

Re:Universities~=Corporate america

[VeNoM0619]

You are really only stating the catch 22:

Making it hard for people to graduate
Leads to people complaining that there aren't enough educated people

This debate will go back and forth for a long time. Either dumb down the courses so more people can get into the "more smarter jobs for america" or make them harder so we have truely intelligent people but "not enough smart people in america".

Either way lazy people are going to cash in, but let's face it, it's becoming human nature to be lazy.

Re:Universities~=Corporate america

[Oxy the moron]

And so the dominoes continue to fall. Look even more closely at K-12 public schools. You want to talk about "simply dish out information and the students memorize?" That's what the typical K-12 education is right there. This is part of the problem with standardized tests at this phase in a student's life. In K-12, you should be taught how to think and problem solve as the basis for later in your education. Instead, we consider it progress if they know when the war of 1812 was fought. After all, getting answers "right" improves standardized test scores. Knowing why it was fought, its ramifications, and what we need to learn from it doesn't do anything to bring more $$$ into the school system.

Then you can go even farther back and look at how parents don't teach their kids anything until they get to school (after all, it's the school's job!) and the problem just keeps getting worse.

America has become a society where education just isn't valued. I could go on and on...

Re:Universities~=Corporate america

[Anonymous Coward]

Watching someone who is current TA for a University professor, all I can say is, They really don't give a fuck. Of the 15 of so professors she interacts with daily, 1 like teaching students. The other consider students a nusance/pests, and the part of there job that sucks and they have to do. Cause once they finish teaching that course, they can go back to the real reason they are at the university. Research (ie: there own..).

It's pretty hilarious actually, cause 4-5 of the teachers are having there TA and RA re-do there research to make it look nicer (without putting there name on it).

This is her 3rd University, and apparently they've all been the same.

Re:Universities~=Corporate america

[COMON$]

The purpose of a university is not to graduate people, the purpose of a University is to EDUCATE people. This idea of dumbing down courses does no one a favor. There are vo-tech colleges for people who cant handle universities. Not that they are not hard, but they are vo-tech, they are meant to crank out one trick horses as fast as possible.

Leads to people complaining that there aren't enough educated peopleA piece of paper does not mean you are educated, especially if all your classes were dumbed down so you didn't actually retain any useful knowledge. This is why the system does not work. The fact that you seem to be on the down the courses so more people can get into the "more smarter jobs for america" thought path is really really sad. Essentially you are saying we need a bunch of sub par people in the "smart jobs" so we should give them the same credentials as much more capable people so we can fill a seat....that is just assinine and makes credentials worthless.

Re:Universities~=Corporate america

[COMON$]

Exactly, I think there was a90% dropout rate in our program. I tutored later on and I firmly believe it is because the CS profs made us THINK and rationalize. Sure they would show us algorithms for best practices, but we had to understand the Big Oh of each search method to apply it to our programs. We learned that you learn more from making mistakes and 20 hours writing a bad method than you do getting it right the first time.

It took me forever to write a 100 line program in C++ when I first started my freshman year. By my senior year I could write the same program in 15 minutes, to the frustration of the students I was tutoring. But I learned sooo much from those mistakes that it is ingrained in me to enjoy failing because the path to the solution rewards so much more than the solution itself.

This is my beef with other educational programs, where they just give you the solution and have you memorize the anatomy of a cat, or chemical formulas rather than helping the students to figure it out themselves.

Re:Universities~=Corporate america

[randamuko]

I don't agree with Vo-Tech's breeding the lazy or a place for people who don't care to go.

I go to a Vo-Tech and I get a good education in Network Administration, I am just not rich and entitled to attend a University public or private. My parents make no money, I am a single parent who has to work full time and barely make it. Spending $500+ per credit is obscene and completely not doable for someone in my position.

For example, my boyfriend's parents are loaded, he goes to the local state university. I go to a local tech college. In the 2 years it will take me to get my degree I will not have spent as much as he does in ONE semester. That is rediculous. Besides, from the people I know in HR they don't so much look at WHERE you got the degree just that you HAVE one. I am pulling 4-5 classes a semester, working full time and taking care of my kid and I think I'm working my ass off. So you may call me lazy for going to a Vo-Tech, I call you pompus for going to a university.

Read the Copyright

[dk90406]

(C) Copyright Alexander Gromikov in the code is a big hint, if the students name is Ken Smith.

Want proof?!

[wmbetts]

See it in action! http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Agetafreelancer.com+%22homework%22&btnG=Google+Search

Clever but self defeating

[sjbe]

That will work until the have to sit down for an actual test or later when they try to hold a job. Might get the cheaters through a class but it's hard to hide a lack of training in the real world. I'm always astonished at the effort people put in to avoid work.

Of course I would blame the professors too for designing a course where such cheating is practically possible. There are definitely ways to make this sort of cheating much harder. In class tests and in class assignments are among the more obvious methods.

Re:Clever but self defeating

[Waffle Iron]

That will work until the have to sit down for an actual test

I saw that in real life. A friend on my dorm floor who had to take a token CS class for his major decided to "outsource" the lab assignments to me. The first week he asked me to do the assignment, I said "Sure, here you go", and whipped out the "Hello World" in 20 seconds. The next week I did his insertion sort in 2 minutes. This went on for a couple more weeks.

About halfway through the semester, when he got something annoying like a balanced red-black tree, I said "Sorry, I'm too busy to tackle that one right now". Of course, by this point he had learned jack shit by not doing any of the work. He didn't finish the rest of the assignments, bombed the tests, and ended up having to take the course again the next semester. In the end it was a big hit on his GPA, he'd wasted many hours of redundant lecture time, and he had to eventually do all the work on his own anyway.

Re:Clever but self defeating

[Shajenko42]

Seems like this would be a better strategy for dealing with your enemies than your friends.

Re:Clever but self defeating

[Waffle Iron]

Well yeah, I learned something from that episode, too. After that, I turned down requests from people wanting me to whip off programming assignments, and I told them that they'd end up better off if they just forced themselves to work through it.

Indubitably

[JoshOOOWAH]

My karma's gone way up ever since I started outsourcing my comments.

Re:Indubitably

[Dachannien]

Dear Sir,

We will have your obligatory Futurama reference done by next Tuesday. Please transfer the funds to the aforementioned offshore bank account.

Impossible to detect?

[RogueyWon]

How can this be impossible to detect? I remember that when I submitted my MA dissertation (a 50,000 word piece about Roman military history), I had a three hour viva on it, where two senior members of the faculty and an external examiner asked me a huge range of questions about not only the subject matter itself, but the processes I'd gone through in researching and writing my dissertation. I know for sure that if I hadn't written the thing myself, there was no way I could have made it through that. Even my significantly more modest undergraduate dissertation (a snip at just 10,000 words) was subject to a 45 minute viva, before a similar panel. Again, if I'd paid somebody else to write it, I'd have stumbled within the first five minutes.

It seems here that "impossible to detect" actually means "impossible to detect without using tried and tested methods that are just too tiresome and/or expensive to use". Admittedly, viva scrutiny isn't possible for every single assignment, but I really would hope that any institution worth its salt would be subjecting final year dissertations to this level of probing. Maybe this doesn't apply in IT courses? I'd find that very surprising, but maybe somebody else with more relevant experience could shed some light.

Re:Impossible to detect?

[cerelib]

You are making the bold assumption that those professor read your work well enough to detect a lie.

Re:Impossible to detect?

[elrous0]

I wondered this as well. My MA defense was tough enough. My Ph.D. qualifyings and dissertation defense were grueling (not to mention that face time I had leading up to it with my advisor and committee). No way you can fake that or just BS your way through it (unless a computer science graduate degree works WAY differently).

good!

[speedtux]

It's causing a major headache for lecturers who say it is almost impossible to detect.

Maybe those lecturers should assign coursework that can't be done by a rent-a-coder in India.

To put it differently, if you're going to a university where the assignments can be outsourced to India for $10, you aren't learning the material you need in order to be globally competitive. Your best bet is to just leave.

Re:good!

[mikael]

Our final year assignments were based upon writing device drivers for bits of hardware (network cards, stepper motors, analog sensors), and writing multi-threaded applications (eg. heart-rate monitor system - thread 1 read data in from the sensor, thread 2 displayed the graph, thread 3 performed critical levels checking/alarm, thread 4 maintained an event log).

Since work could only take place in that room on a dedicated trusted server, and the students had to leave the work in a particular directory, it would be hard for any student to outsource the work.

University

[Kamineko]

At my university (I mentioned it in a previous Slashdot post), most module projects have to include a presentation describing the work, with time for questions.

It's cruel, but I think it's quite funny when folks can't readily describe what they did*. It gets quite Phoenix Wright-y at times.

* It's not funny when you're nervous and can't think of a way to articulate how you designed a complex system, but it's usually easy to tell the difference.

Re:University

[thermian]

Indeed, it is extremely easy to tell when someone is nervously forgetting from someone who has no clue. I've assessed presentations where the student who has quite obviously worked hard has lost their nerve and started blathering, and others where a pseudo confident fool talks a load of crap that reveals they didn't do the work.

As for exactly how you can tell. In my experience you can usually tell because the student who is genuine but too nervous tends to know their system so well they get themselves completely mixed up over their presentation, explaining things out of order and getting confused.

The lying student tends to be far too shallow in descriptions, and avoids low level detail. I even had one who's presentation was only linked to his slides in that they were both in the same room. It was hilarious.

Re:University

[SatanicPuppy]

My stuff was readily apparent because I tended to get bored with student level coding and add "easter eggs" for the auto-tester.

Basically the way it worked was you submitted your program, and they ran a piece of test code that threw data at it and checked the responses. It tried various combinations of data to see if your program worked to parameters, and threw the right errors with bad data.

What I did was add a random factor to my error handling so that after a certain number of failed tests it would throw an occasional curveball, which wouldn't be reproducable to the automation, so it would flag it for a TA, who would then add a snide remark and knock off a point or two if they were in a bad mood. (As an example, One of the early stupid programs was to build a simulated "Tamagotchi" and they were supposed to starve to death if you didn't feed them; 9 times in 10 mine would, but the 10th time they would have a cage match (if there was more than 1) and the winner would eat the loser. The death match code was 8 times as long as the rest of the program.)

The testing program also checked for cheating, by parsing the code and checking it against all other submitted code. The one time I got flagged for cheating (someone swiped my code off a printer, and wasn't smart enough to notice my widgets) my traditional wonky output was "proof" enough for the prof to clear me with only a couple of questions.

Re:University

[forgotten_my_nick]

I have seen one instance where two people in the class gave an overview, word for word of the exact same code claiming they both wrote it not realizing they were the same. Another in the class had every second line deleted from his code (because he annoyed the wrong person) and never once noticed when giving his presentation.

Re:University

[Gazzonyx]

The problem I have with explaining stuff is that I usually work on projects constantly at school, four at a time, all in different languages. If you ask me a question off the top of my head, you'll likely get, "well, the layout is like this, and this interfaces that, and... no, wait! I pulled that layer out a few days ago, it conflicted with a blocking race condition. It raises an exception... erm, that's my ADA project... throws an exception..."

At the end of stumbling through it, you'll likely look at a design feature and say, "well, why didn't you just do X" and I'll recoil in horror as I realize I'll have to tell you that it never occurred to me, although in retrospect, that's really a much simpler... no, wait, that'll have the same issue as the interface I threw out last week.

If you think I'm cheating, you should see me ask a girl out on a date. I'm really talented, but incredibly awkward. The best way to get a design out of me, and know for a fact that I created it, is to give me a white board and let me draw out the program as a diagram. I usually do it in ASCII art in my comments, too. It makes more sense that way, anyways. And it skips a good deal of questions that would send me off on a tangent detailing why I was in the situation that I had to do Y.

i can do it faster and better than any indian

[peter303]

I have pride in my intellectual prowess. Its inconceivable I'd cheat this way. I have to show off to the teacher how smart I am.

Re:i can do it faster and better than any indian

[catmistake]

I have pride in my intellectual prowess. Its inconceivable I'd cheat this way. I have to show off to the teacher how smart I am. That seems to be a common theme among the posters here... each one immenantly confident in their skills, and each smarter than everyone else. Surely, you and they are all self-deluded, self-absorbed and arrogant. I, for one, never make mistakes myself, and always find simpler solutions to problems than anyone else... although I used to think as you and they do... years ago... but I have overcome these lame social self-awareness issues and now I am perfect in every way.

I did that and it worked out great.

[Anonymous Coward]

I interviewed a couple of grads and one said he'd outsource the work to India. I hired him on the spot because that's the correct answer! Because, I can't find any excellent IT folks here so I have to go overseas.

Why yes! I recruit for IBM, Intel, Bank of America, and many many other large corporations.

Not a good idea

[Zelocka]

Anyone in the IT field that has dealt with outsourced code knows that it's generally buggy and poorly written and requires a lot of debug time on the company side. It's not likely that annoying college students are going to get good quality especially since they likely won't know the difference if they are using a service like that anyway.

I guess outsourcing would generally work for simple assignments, but frankly it would take more time to find someone to do it then it would to do most coding assignments in the first place. Add to that the fact that you will have tests on the subject both in class and in interviews so doing this is not a good move long term anyway.

Now if it was English papers...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Dissertation Topic

[AutopsyReport]

Are you suggesting my upcoming dissertation about the Kwik-E Mart might be read suspiciously?

Thank you for ruining my idea! Please come again.

let them do it I say

[thermian]

After all, if they think that all they need is the degree certificate in order to get a decent career in IT, then their stupidity leaves the field clear for those of us who slaved over a hot dissertation for months on end.

I have met such morons before, usually they end up in the lowest wage positions, or drifting from one shit job to the next.

When I was an undergrad in CS four years back, there were girls on my course offering sex in return for completing their programming assignments. I never took one of them up on this offer. To this day I have no idea why....

Re:let them do it I say

[Target Practice]

When I was an undergrad in CS four years back, there were girls on my course offering sex in return for completing their programming assignments. I never took one of them up on this offer. To this day I have no idea why....

If they're anything like the majority of the girls in my CS program, I have an idea why.

Re:let them do it I say

[ztransform]

When I was an undergrad in CS four years back, there were girls on my course offering sex in return for completing their programming assignments. I never took one of them up on this offer. To this day I have no idea why....

Lack of a clean user interface?

Re:let them do it I say

[Eoika]

If they're anything like the majority of the girls in my CS program, I have an idea why. At least you have girls in your CS program.

Re:let them do it I say

[vikstar]

maybe you do aswell... don't let the facial hair fool you.

This Slashdot article...

[rodney dill]

....was actually outsourced to an India Contractor.

(Unfortunately so is the moderation on the comments)

Rent A Coder, anyone?

[BradleyAndersen]

I used to do work on Rent A Coder, till I couldn't compete anymore. 5 years ago, you could get good money for writing simple projects for people (I didn't ask what the projects were for ;) ... now programmers abroad are doing the same coding for about 10 times less cost (my non-scientific observations on my project bids) than I can. This thing has been around a long time.

Thank minimum wage

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Outsourcing in general is caused by the minimum wage. Companies are able to get cheaper labor outside the country, and we end up paying more through transport costs than we would if there was no minimum wage.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[arivanov]

Who told you that this is outsourcing?

Farming out homework is something that has been going on since the days when the only thing that was studied in Heidelberg was theology.

There is nothing particularly new and surprising here except Internet enabling the homework to be farmed out further afield.

Further to this, a f2f examination can determine if the homework is real or not real in a matter of seconds. So anyone bitching about the practice becoming more prevalent should actually bitch about tests and assignments replacing good old f2f examination.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[HungryHobo]

Let me guess, you've never really been in poverty. The minimum wage exists for the same reason as usury laws. Desperate people get taken advantage of. Which is not ok. It's all very easy to prattle on about market forces and everyone being free to not take a job when you've never been in a situation where you need money to get to the end of the month without starving or ending up on the street. If you follow your logic forcing employers to minimum safety standards also makes it more profitable to set up somewhere without such standards. But the workers are perfectly free to work somewhere where they won't get maimed by the machinery. Right? No need for laws on working conditions. Personally I'm not mad on the idea of giving employers the chance to pay sweatshop wages. Outsourcing in general is not caused by the minimum wage.Outsourcing in general is caused by the existance of countries which lack of any kind of workers rights, minimum wage or safety standards.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[Anonymous Coward]

the minimum wage

Well, except for the fact that nobody who wants employees has been paying minimum wage for some time now. Heck, even meatpackers pay illegal immigrants twice the minimum plus benefits.

Don't let that stop you from going off the deep end though.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[blueg3]

In general, outsourcing is caused by labor being cheaper in a different area.

A minimum wage is one specific reason (not general) why labor might be cheaper in one area than another.

Of course, unless you're implying that the minimum wage significantly influences the wages of workers who earn well above the minimum wage, much outsourcing (like IT outsourcing) isn't caused by minimum wage.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[Mycroft_514]

Minimum wage is not SUPPOSED to be a living wage. And every time you raise minimum wage, you actually CUT the pay of everyone else in the country. Why? Because inflation is keyed to minimum wage. And not everyone gets a raise when minimum wage goes up. And when mimnimum wage goes up, many new jobs are eliminated fromt eh private secotr, because small business can't afford them, so they do without and businesses fail or not.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[TheAngryIntern]

funny how you're calling him out claiming he needs to provide evidence when you never provided any evidence that minmum wage causes outsourcing. You just stated your opinion on the matter.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[HungryHobo]

I have to prove that minimum safety standards make it more expensive to set up a buisness?

People still need food/shelter to survive. it's true. Problem is that while getting rid of the minimum wage causes all those lovely efficient changes in the economy it also creates an underclass who get paid just enough to survive and nothing more.
those who benefit most are the people at the top who's buying power is suddenly multiplied.
You want an example? Pick some 3rd world countries with no minimum wage.
How about this, give me an example, any example at all of a country with no minimum wage where it hasn't lead to horrible living conditions for a large chunk of the population.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[rcw-home]

Minimum wage is not SUPPOSED to be a living wage.

inflation is keyed to minimum wage.

How can inflation be keyed to minimum wage if there aren't a significant number of people living on it?

Re:Thank minimum wage

[HungryHobo]

I agree that sometimes unions go too far.
Particularly when they don't let anyone who isn't a member of the union do a job.

In the town where I live there is a park.
It's a mess.
The local boyscouts decided to clean up the park.
They got a permit from the local council.
They started work.
The council workers union decided that by cleaning up the park the boyscouts were potentially taking work away from union members and threatened to strike.
The permit was pulled.
No work was ever done.
The park is still a mess...

Of course there is a worthwile side to unions.
If a union is asking too much then a company can just fire everyone who's on strike and replace them. if it's cheaper to give the union members better pay then it stands to reason that the union members were being undervalued up to this point.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[Qzukk]

If all property were privately-owned, it would be much more difficult for you to pollute without facing consequences from your neighbors.

Yeaaaaah... no.

What about all the pollution out there that lands on property that is privately-owned? I guess they're just too lazy to look at the little "From:" tags tied to the benzene rings or bits of soot to try and sue the corporations that released them.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[Free the Cowards]

Why would it not be outsourcing? Outsourcing refers to anything that you pay someone else to do instead of doing it yourself. It's only in bizarro-world Slashdot land that "outsourcing" has this ridiculously specific definition of "recent activities involving paying overseas software companies instead of using in-house programmers".

Re:Thank minimum wage

[SatanicPuppy]

Yes and no. It's like coal power; sure it's cheap electricity, but it's cheap mainly because the costs in terms of pollution and illness are unaccounted for.

China is a great example of the dangers of ignoring the environment; hell, there is still an article on the front page of /. about it. Ftfa 16 of the top 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China. Sure, they produce cheap plastic crap cheaper than anyone else, but those costs will catch up with them and they will have to be paid.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[CheShACat]

nothing particularly new and surprising here except Internet enabling the homework to be farmed out further afield. And cheaper! In my day I used to get at least £20 for doing assignments ;) If the Romanians had been undercutting by that much when I was at Uni I would have starved :(

Re:Thank minimum wage

[Stew Gots]

Refute it or accept it. Or just walk away.

States with no minimum wage (but must follow federal wage): Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee.

Poverty rate: Alabama (7th), Louisiana (2nd), Mississippi (1st), South Carolina (10th), Tennessee (11th).

Are these your idea of vibrant economies? Shouldn't they be rolling in money from all those outsourced jobs?

More than 20 state pay HIGHER than the federal minimum wage. Now YOU find reputable evidence that they have lost significant numbers of jobs? Did their hotels close? Is everyone now mowing their own lawns? Did the fast food industry collapse?

Re:Thank minimum wage

[alan_dershowitz]

Conversely, the minimum wage helps retain a basic standard of living in the United States if jobs that are truly not profitable in our country are moved out of the country. People don't have access to all the facts, so you can get yourself into a situation where people can't make a truly rational choice for products and everyone just chooses cheap, unreliable, unsafe products on their extremely low wages. So absolutely we can get rid of the minimum wage and other government controls, but that's the equivalent of choosing to be a third-world country.

What is your position on unions? I've noticed that people who promote the things that you do being intensely anti-union despite the fact that the only way that workers can effectively demand higher wages and better working conditions you folks claim they could if they want is, well, collectively.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[Opportunist]

What? You mean, like, a prof actually talking to a student? Maybe even long enough to test him?

You haven't seen a university from the inside lately, have you?

Re:Thank minimum wage

[Vancorps]

You are also ignoring history which states otherwise. Why do you think minimum wage laws and unions were formed in the first place?

Losing minimum wage has shown itself to send a whole populous down into poverty. You need only look at the average income of an American over the last 100 years to see that when you make more money your quality of life goes up. More people today are making more money and enjoy a much higher quality of life than my grand parents did during the depression.

Parent was correct in calling your naive, either that or willfully ignorant.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[ElleyKitten]

"Outsourcing in general is not caused by the minimum wage."

You're going to have to provide some evidence to support this. If the whole purpose of business is to make money, and companies can make more money by paying less to workers, then it is obvious that the minimum wage is going to drive jobs away. That would be true if most of the most of the jobs outsourced would pay minimum wage in America. Let's think of some common jobs that are outsourced - programmers, call centers, factories - their American counterparts make 2-3 times the federal minimum wage on the low end (yes, factory workers make more than min wage - do you think anyone would work in a factory if they could work at a less dangerous job for the same amount of money?). Outsourcing didn't happen so that companies could pay $1 an hour instead of $5, it happened so that they could pay $1 an hour instead of $20. Removing minimum wage won't bring those jobs back, because it's not going to make American programmers take $1 an hour. The only way to make America compete with 3rd world countries on wages is to make America a 3rd world country.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[pegdhcp]

When I started to give some courses in my old school -which fortunately did not last much- first thing I realized was that it was unbelievably easy for the instructor to see what is going on, during classes, during exams, and naturally home works and/or assignments etc. Any teacher who want to help the development of his/her pupils, just needs to watch them and _really_ read their papers.

"The problem is definitely getting worse, it is hard to detect, the number of these sites is spreading all the time and it is impossible for us to monitor all of them." If these gentlemen in the FA want to do their job correctly, maybe it would be better to concentrate on their students, instead of these cheating sites. I agree with them it is not possible to track all sites. I had a friend who established a publishing company by using his income from his "home work helper" site. It is one of the hidden (still) sectors of the Internet, like book selling before Amazon's success.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[Red Flayer]

Why? Because inflation is keyed to minimum wage.

That's a myth.

Even the Cato institute doesn't buy cost-push inflation:

Some opponents of the minimum wage argue that it aggravates inflation by pushing up the costs of individual businesses. [4] Those businesses, unwilling or unable to absorb such costs, pass them on to consumers in the form of higher prices. In this view, any artificial increase in labor costs can produce so-called cost-push inflation.

There are several problems with the notion of cost-push inflation. The primary error in this analysis is that it confuses a shift in the structure of relative prices with a general rise in the level of prices. If the labor costs of businesses are increased and they succeed in passing on the costs to consumers in the form of higher prices, they will have managed to change the structure of relative prices at the expense of businesses that are unable to raise their prices because of more-intense competition. This is quite distinct from a general increase in the level of prices, which would be possible only if the real supply of money was increased.

Many firms, however, may be unable to pass on their increased costs to consumers. It is consumers who ultimately determine the price of any good on the market, and they may decide that a business's product is not worth a higher price. Producers cannot force consumers to buy what they produce, and businesses cannot always arbitrarily increase the prices of their products simply because the government has arbitrarily increased their costs.

This fact has important implications. If a business cannot simply pass along its new labor costs, it must somehow absorb them--by eliminating workers rendered unproductive by the new minimum wage, by replacing labor with more-productive machines, or by cutting back production. Those jobs not eliminated will be more demanding, as employers will use fewer people to produce the same amount of work.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[robthebloke]

Well, I've personally recieved e-mails from students asking for help from the UK, US, Spain and pakistan to name but a few. I actually submitted some of the funnier ones here

Re:Thank minimum wage

[Vancorps]

Where are you getting these insane ideas? Have you ever visited a textile mill? People were dying in sweatshop housing going further and further into debt while trying to get ahead. They were fed the bare minimum and endured extremely dangerous conditions.

OSHA was created because of several large fires at textile mills which killed hundreds at a time. These conditions weren't limited to textile mills but they were the beginnings of America becoming a manufacturing powerhouse around the turn of the last century.

You'll note despite the minimum wage being established in particularly Lowell Massachusetts in 1912 that the state became a one of the largest producers of textiles. Similarly when minimum wage was introduced nationally in 1938 that the United States as a whole became a world leader. Minimum wage doesn't take all the credit, the war had a lot to do with it but when a larger percentage of your population becomes consumers everyone wins.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[mazarin5]

I know it's been prevalent for as long as I've been freelancing. The end of the spring semester is always a time to pick up quick cash. Suddenly, there are 100 people who need trivial work done, desperately need it in less than 48 hours, and have seemingly inexhaustible funds with which to buy my services.

I always make sure to include excessively thorough comments and a boilerplate explanation of the basic algorithm, so they can defend their work if necessary. I would like to think that they learn the subject after all.

Re:Thank minimum wage

[krunk7]

I'm a capitalist. As a capitalist I'm a staunch adherent to free & fair market competition. The existence of unions is essential to this equation. The reason being that a business, especially large business, is essentially a business union.

There must be a counterweight to this collusion for any market to remain healthy. Even Adam Smith recognized this:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. Adam Smith

"...or to lower wages." Is easily added to this observation as the spirit of quote is that that trade unions (*cough* corporations) will always try to maximize profits. This is not a bad thing, but we must allow workers to form their own groups and counter balance this force with one of their own: To maximize individual profits and ensure safe conditions.

The real travesty is not out sourcing, but the lack of penalty (financially) for a business model that takes advantage of states or nations that do not adhere to these essential principles of a free & fair market (and worker) equality.

However, Adam Smith's advocacy of a living wage and unions did not stop there.

"It is but equity...that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged." -Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

Of course, the cunning slashdotter libertarian may respond "but what is 'tolerably'? Should everyone have a TV and a computer? Let the market decide!" Our estimable Father of Free Market Capitalism did not stop here, but made absolutely clear what "tolerable" should mean:

By necessaries I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but what ever the customs of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even the lowest order, to be without. A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably, though they had no linen. But in the present times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-laborer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty which, it is presumed, nobody can well fall into, without extreme bad conduct. Custom, in the same manner, has rendered leather shoes a necessary of life in England.

If, as we oft hear, we are now in a global economy and so boundaries between economies should be torn down, then so too should the boundaries of "tolerable" existence be destroyed as well. If a company wishes to sell its goods to the Western nation's, it is by the standards of those that these outsourced workers "feed, clothe and lodge" that their income should be determined.

One may pose the rebuttal that this would negate the benefit of outsourcing, but is utter hogwash. First, let's investigate what is meant by "tolerable existance" by posing a simple question (I borrow this from John Cassidy, New Yorker Economist, paraphrased for brevity). "What lack of affluence would such a society, in general, view as a point of shame?" In Western society, most would consider the inability to afford a television a rather embarassing state to be in...one can be had for a mere 100 American dollars or even less. By this metric, we should pay outsourced workers an amount capable of producing this level of success in their own economies, which is quite a bit less.

Thus, out sourcing to nations for cheaper labor is not an inherently bad thing. However, when this is done with the aim of abusing lax labor, environmental, and other measures necessary for the worker to enjoy a level of success seen in the nation doing the sourcing, i

Re:Thank minimum wage

[WhiteHorse-The Origi]

In Asia, plagiarism is common. It is a HUGE problem. I bet most University graduates in Asia plagiarized their thesis and other work. It's sooo obvious, just look at their publications and read their books. It's like they just took someone else's book and shuffled the chapters, changing a few words here and there. They submit it, it passes the automated plagiarism detector, and poof! they're a goddam genius!!! PhD! Woo!

Then you ask them a simple question that's in their field and they have no clue. But you said in your thesis... Or What was your thesis about?

From what I gather, many of these students go to US universities, get their degrees there and come back to Asia and make top dollar. The universities just turn a blind eye and take as much money as possible. It's sad but true.

And business will adapt ...

[bestinshow]

Simply put, when I'm in a position to hire myself - in the next few years - I'll simply not hire any person who graduated after 2005 unless they've actually got real world experience under their belt and even then they'll have to get technical describing their work, what they did, etc. That, or they went to a top-notch university that I can trust to have avoided such behaviour.

So basically, it will screw all students including the honest ones.

Note that increasing costs in India, etc, mean that outsourcing will get less desirable over time. Of course, if the home-grown talent cheated their way to a degree (and mark my words that each time you hire a graduate and they're rubbish and know nothing, that university will be discarded on future applications) then outsourcing might be the only way to go, even if it's not any cheaper.

Re:And business will adapt ...

[baggins2001]

I don't know why everybody thinks that this is a recent problem. This has been going on at least since 99.
And at some of the major schools in the land. There were at least 2 schools in the North East where this was happening at that time.
We hired one, knowing full well he had engaged in this practice. We didn't care. We were outsourcing our work back then, not because it was cheaper, but because it was the easiest way to find people at the time.
There have always been group projects in school where people could skate through. This was going on back in the 80's.

A self-correcting problem

[MikeRT]

Just wait until they get interviewed for a position where they can't do this. Pretty soon, they'll either have to learn to do it themselves or get fired.

Oh, and if they do continue this sort of thing without the company's approval, there are all sorts of wonderful civil actions that can be taken against them by their employer. Like... exposing trade secrets to unauthorized personnel, distributing company intellectual property to those without authorization...

God help them if they go to work as an engineer for a government contractor. They'll have the Inspector General or the FBI busting down their door with an arrest warrant if they're not very, very careful.

Does this show how useless a Degree is?

[pillageplunder]

I've been in IT for 27 years, having started out by learning Keypunching via the Military. Branched out to PC's in 1982, taught myself whatever was needed to perform the various jobs I've held over the years. Now I find myself working as a Software QA lead...and interviewing folks who are out of college who have no idea how to configure an XP system to set up two different printers on a network. And these fools have Bachelor Degrees?
So, having a degree is worth what? It doesn't appear its worth the paper its printed on. These same folks outsourcing their coursework are the next generation of Enron II...no ethics, no sense of pride in a job well done as they havn't even done it.
Nice to see the Secondary skills I've maintained in the Construction and Plumbing trades will still be needed...these fools will probably be the ones trying to cut a sheet of plywood using their leg as a saw-horse...assuming they can figure out how to USE the saw.
At least the good news is they'll have a good rapport with the Tech support folks, having dealt with so many of them during college.

Minimum wage and other laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, child labor laws, weekends, 40 hour work weeks, worker safety laws, and clean air/clean water laws do the same thing. These things all drive up the cost of labor and push down productivity.

Maybe for the US to remain competitive, we should repeal those laws that prevent Americans from being truly competitive in the global economy. If it takes our kids working in coal mines 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, so be it. The first goal of American government is to protect the profitability of domestic and foreign businesses, and all these laws are standing in the way of this. /sarcasm off

Re:Minimum wage and other laws

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

"If it takes our kids working in coal mines 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, so be it."

Pithy, frightening scenarios backed up by no evidence or rationale whatsoever should be disregarded no matter how frightening.

"The first goal of American government is to protect the profitability of domestic and foreign businesses"

Actually the first and only goal of the government should be to uphold the rights of its citizenry, but feel free to continue to mischaracterize.

Re:Minimum wage and other laws

[Quasar Sera]

I don't know if it says more about me or about Slashdot that I took your comment seriously (and got seriously angry) until you stated explicitly that you were being sarcastic.

Re:Minimum wage and other laws

[DM9290]

"If it takes our kids working in coal mines 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, so be it."

Pithy, frightening scenarios backed up by no evidence or rationale whatsoever should be disregarded no matter how frightening.

"The first goal of American government is to protect the profitability of domestic and foreign businesses"

Actually the first and only goal of the government should be to uphold the rights of its citizenry, but feel free to continue to mischaracterize.

When something like the industrial revolution and political economics is so widely documented there is no need for anyone to waste time rehashing the evidence on some online blog for the amusement of people who are too lazy to do their basic homework. Why don't you get your head out of Thomas Pains ass and pay attention to the actual world.

The poster was not saying what the goal of the American government SHOULD BE, he was saying what the goal of the American government ACTUALLY IS.

If America was so concerned about protecting human rights, it wouldn't spend so much time trying to privatize absolutely everything, deny global warming, and try to impose democracy with a gun on others. And and don't forget about preventing non-coalition countries from bidding on reconstruction contracts in Iraq. No.. that's not essentially a scheme to raise the cost of reconstruction and increase profits for american companies at the expense of Iraqi citizens.

Re:Minimum wage and other laws

[c6gunner]

Why do you explain that many countries in the world are still exploiting children if the technology advancement were more profitable ?

They don't have the capital to invest in the technology, while they DO have a surplus of labour. It's simple economics.

Re:Minimum wage and other laws

[Opportunist]

I think it says more about the times we're in and that someone can actually say something like that without sounding like some slavedriver factory owner.

Hell, I could see those words coming from politicians. But without the sarcasm flags raised.

Re:Minimum wage and other laws

[Sapphon]

the first and only goal of the government should be to uphold the rights of its citizenry. (Emphasis added)

Bollocks. What about the provision public goods (e.g. national defence)? Market regulation? Wealth redistribution? Welfare isn't a "right", you know. What about representation on an international level?

Your characterisation of a government's primary role may be (well, is) closer to the truth than that of the GP, but your oversimplification hasn't helped any.

Pithy, frightening scenarios backed up by no evidence or rationale whatsoever should be disregarded no matter how frightening.

Blanket rejections backed up by no evidence or rationale whatsoever should be disregarded, _because_ they lead to false rejections of scenarios that may be true. How about some critical thought here?

Re:Minimum wage and other laws

[drsquare]

That works both ways, and other countries could block US exports. For example Microsoft could be banned from selling Windows in the EU, as their workers work more than 35 hours a week and don't get 10 weeks vacation. And no US food exports either as it's produced with illegal Mexican labour.

Hollywood would face problems showing their films in place where the activities of their mafia-like unions would be illegal. Your theory only works based on the assumption that the US has the world's best employment conditions.

Re:Minimum wage and other laws

[ari wins]

No.. that's not essentially a scheme to raise the cost of reconstruction and increase profits for american companies at the expense of American citizens. There, I fixed that last line for you.

Re:Minimum wage and other laws

[ppanon]

So that's why most clothing that is bought is made in North America and not in sweatshops in SE Asia or the Dominican Republica! Oh wait, it's the other way around and the NA/European clothing manufacturing industry sucks except for haute couture. I think there's something wrong with your argument.

Yeah, open pit mining is more efficient at extracting some types of resources. But if you were trying to get coal a couple of Km down, and it was legal to use child labour at a fraction of the wages of adults without needing to worry about black lung protection, I think you'd find kids in coal mines again pretty quickly.

Nothing new here

[wcrowe]

When I first started coding (early 80s) it was on a mainframe which could only be accessed via the computer lab. Everyone closely guarded their user accounts, but when we compiled our programs, it generated a listing on a central printer. You would submit your program for compilation, then go hang out at the printer waiting for it to appear. Typically, a student would glance at the listing, note the compilation error, then toss the listing in the trash.

It wasn't long before the more clueless, or lazier students figured out that they could get pretty far ahead in their projects by rifling through the trash bin and pulling out another student's listing which (mostly) worked.

Those of us actually doing the work had no clue that this was going on because it was not unusual for someone to be digging through the trash bin for one of their own previous listings.

I learned about this "dumpster diving" practice when one of my professors warned me that another student had copied my work almost verbatim. Fortunately this prof knew me and my "style" well enough to figure out what was going on. After that, I saved all my listings and only trashed them later off site.

My point is that cheating like this among student coders is nothing new. There are always a few who are unable to make it on their own merits.

Colleges don't have a choice.

[Shivetya]

They are not being lenient, they are acting out of fear of lawsuits and funding cuts.

Lenient is the PC way of saying we're letting unqualified people in because they meet one quota or another. Lenient is PC for saying passing over better qualified students because they don't come with bonus money : read government funds.

One thing that does amaze me is some of the larger "private" schools who are sitting on billions all the while bemoaning the fact that the government doesn't do enough to pay for quota groups to attend. BILLIONS. Their interest alone would pay for many thousands to have access to their schools but they prefer to sit on it.

Sorry, the courts and congress have already decided that merit is not a valid measurement, especially if declaring one side having more offends another.

The one great truth too many people want to ignore is that we are not all created equal. The law can state otherwise, "feel gooders" can cry all they want, the PC police can declare the sentence "hate speech" but fortunately nature doesn't care.

Outsource Dissertation Evaluations

[repetty]

The follow up article, which hasn't been published yet, is the effect that outsourcing dissertation evaluations has had on the educational process.

The most shocking revelation will be that these outsourced professors frequently evaluate their own papers, effectively double-dipping.

Try putting some effort in Prof

[sheepofblue]

The professors are pathetic. OOO we can't stop cheating OOO guess we will just keep turning out dunces....

Why not randomly select some papers and ask some questions? If you really wrote it you can easily explain 90%+.

I am sure there is a LOT of other methods if the instructor actually put some thought and effort into doing their job.

So in essence we have slackers complaining that slackers are bypassing the training. Personally it sounds like the instructor is getting across how they work quite well, how ironic.

A new reality!

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been going on for years. I had one group of students post my final project on RentaCoder.com about 5 years ago. Fortunately, the assignment was of great enough complexity that no-one was willing to bid on it. As a result of this incident I learned how out of touch some senior adminstrators at my college were with current reality. The incident reached the highest levels and the response was "how is this different than students passing cheat-sheets". One difference of course is that it might be a Russian or Indian Ph.D passing the cheat sheet and it can't be caught. They couldn't comprehend this.

There are some protective measures that can be taken. Using test questions that exercise what is learned in assignments (perhaps by including questions that are stripped down analogs of assignments or projects)and by requiring that students must have a passing grade in the test component to pass the course helps a little bit. I had one student once hand me an assignment that I don't believe could have been written by even a gifted student. It had the signature of several years of professional practice. Her cousin was a senior programmer on Wall Street. She failed the course because of the test component (which included a grossly simplified version of the project).

Unfortunately, I believe this is the new reality and extra effort is required to deal with it.

Sad...

[neowolf]

And yet, most large corporations require a 4-year degree (or more) just to get into the interview process for a job, regardless of one's real-world experience. We can see from this how much a lot of those 4-year degrees are really worth.

Money?

[denzacar]

How is it rewarding? With money?
You know... those little paper thingies with numbers and pictures of people on them, that you give at the store and they let you take things out of the store?

It's self-correcting....

[King_TJ]

Home-grown talent that cheated their way into jobs either A) gets frustrated by their poor performance reviews and inability to succeed in their chosen field, and gets out, or B) actually learns to be competent over time (at the expense of whoever the sucker was who employed them first).

I saw a lot of both A and B over the years, even with a few buddies of mine.

EG. I once knew a guy who was pretty much your stereotypical "happy, go lucky, wanna-be beach bum" type. He got into I.T. as an entry-level coder using relatively high-level programming tools like "Powerbuilder". All he really did was minor code maintenance (such as, "Please change things so the clock time is displayed here, instead of here, on our screens"). He wound up scoring a support job at Oracle, earning at least 3x his former pay, with no real Oracle experience, all because he crash-course studied the thing for like 2 weeks after finding out he had an interview scheduled. Only REAL reason he wanted that job? He got to re-locate to Colorado, where he wanted to ski really badly. But his friendly personality and willingness to "cram" to know "just enough" to get by in a given situation got him through.....

They are only hurting themselves..

[cryptodan]

because when they actually doing work related to their degrees they will not know the material and thusly will get fired. Its better to do the work yourself then pay someone else to do it.

DO the math

[kcdoodle]

I taught "Advance Application Development and Design" at Senior level at a major State University.
We had 13 weeks, twice a week and a few holidays.
So I got to see the student who did not skip class 24 times.

In that time I gave 10 Quizzes, 2 Tests and 5 Projects to a usual 35 students.
Quizzes and Tests were pretty easy to make, grade and prevent cheating.

Projects are another thing altogether. Each student project takes about an hour to find, run, test, grade and provide feed back on. Each project can be turned in multiple time by students. When all the hours are calculated, I was making about $2/hr.
Now you want me to see you separately? Sure, all you need to do is ask. No one EVER asked. I would even cruise the labs looking for my students so I could help. Only a few times was this fruitful.
Because of rampant cheating, I started giving different, but similar projects to the students. A lot more student struggled, and more assignments were late, a few more failed, and my grading time was greatly increased.
I got tired of students who feel entitled to a passing grade if they take a class, and who feel entitled to a good grade if the attend more than half of them, so I quit.

When I was a student, I had a full time job and paid for school myself. Other student were joyous when an instructor canceled class. I, of course, was angry for not getting my money's worth.

Re:DO the math

[MickLinux]

Yeah, well when I was in aerospace engineering, I had a GTA who gave lab assignments once every 2 weeks, with a "required set of sections" that made each lab take about 50 pages.

Of course, everyone else just skipped the required sections, and put in "data" "results" and a short "conclusion". I did the full 50 pages, at about 1 hr per page.

In addition, there were supposed to be professionally done computer printouts that (at the time) only Harvard Graphics could handle. Since Harvard Graphics was expensive, I was the only one who wrote his own programs to produce the graphs. Most others used a pirate copy.

So I ended up spending 25 hrs/wk on these labs, turning them in 2 days late, while everyone else turned them in on time. The GTA kept delaying grading anything...

At the end of the course, he graded all of them 90, regardless of content, minus 10 points per day late. So I got a D in the course, having damaged my other grades in an effort to do well in what I thought was a very important part of my education. The administration upheld the GTA, perhaps because they decided it would be impolitic to fail 90% of the class based on their work... ... and my pressure on the issue also ended up costing me recommendations...

I think my story outdoes your story.

But we live in the society we live in. Just desserts do come, but not always. C'est la vie.

Skipping class is not a big deal

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I think you have some very good ideas to cut down on cheating etc.

When I attended university, I regularly skipped classes if I thought I would not learn anything in that class. I could then use that time more productively.

A friend and I buddied up taking notes: he took course A and I took course B. We still did the tests (one mid-term test per course) and both got good grades in both courses. I hardly learned anything from those courses but they were prerequisites so I had to take them.

I think what I did was right because all I skipped was the drudge stuff of attending class.