Students get an A for audacious, F for fraud
Universities get wise to wily ways of cheaters
Jeff Appling couldn’t believe the things students did when he took charge of Clemson University’s academic integrity process in 2005.
Nothing surprises him anymore. Not excused absences that are forged or answers copied off peers. Not electronic devices at exams.
And definitely not the student who was caught with a cheat sheet handwritten on his leg – though his explanation was another story, something Appling found interesting.
The student claimed writing on himself was how he studied, “in order to get closer to the content,” Appling said.
No matter how strange the method,
students’ motivation is mundane: trying to get better grades in a competitive environment where money is sometimes on the line, either in the form of grade-dependent scholarships or in the prospect of a good career.
Schools are catching more students, in part because of increased enrollment and in part because of better technology to detect cheaters. The USA TODAY Network asked Appling to pick out a few of the more interesting methods of cheating he has seen in his 14 years.
Would-be cheaters take heed: None of these creative tricks ended well for the students.
Emailing a professor for answers
In one case, an engineering student got caught cheating on a take-home exam. The student came across a problem he could not solve and decided to email another professor, asking whether that instructor might help him work through a problem.
The professor caught on that something was fishy and forwarded the request to his colleagues, one of whom had given the original test.
“That was kind of bold,” Appling said of the student’s attempt.
Bathroom note stashing
A few years ago, Clemson’s Test Proctoring Center, which provides accommodations for students who may need extra time or other services, found itself in a spot that was hard to supervise, Appling said.
His office saw a rash of problems with students stashing notes in the nearby bathroom, then excusing themselves and reviewing the notes during tests. The problem became pervasive enough that proctors would simply check the bathroom right as an exam began to throw away any hidden notes.
If the notes were found and thrown away, Appling’s office did not charge students. Officials could not prove the students intended to use them.
Crafty with computers
For ease of grading, some Clemson faculty members have students take tests on their computers while sitting in a classroom, Appling said. They give out a password at the start of the class to make sure students are present for the exam and use a program called Respondus Lock Down to ensure students do not browse other websites during a test. One student thought he could hack the system.
After sitting down to take a test, the student closed his computer and acted as if he had finished. When he left the classroom, he reopened it and kept answering questions.
The professor was monitoring the tests that came in. When she saw his was not submitted and he was still changing answers, she called out his name in the classroom. He wasn’t there.
Appling said the student left “really good footprints of what he was doing.”
“They don’t realize that all this stuff is tracked,” Appling said.
A ‘premeditated’ absence
One student thought he had planned out an elaborate ruse to get a copy of a test early, but the plan backfired.
The student was scheduled to go on a legitimate, university-sanctioned trip the same day he had a math exam, Appling said. Knowing he would get back late from the trip, he asked his professor whether he could take the test later so he would have more time to study. The professor agreed to a make-up exam.
The exam was for a large math class in which multiple sections of the course took it at the same time in the evening. When the student got back from his trip, he went to the exam site for another section of the course and sat down for the test, taking the paper with him as he left and thinking it would give him an advantage on the make-up.
When the number of students in the testing room did not match the number of tests turned in, the professor caught on. Appling was notified but knew he could not process the charges fast enough.
The professor wrote a new test, and they confronted the student after the make-up. The student said he had a “moment of conscience” and threw out the exam after leaving the first test. That excuse did not pass muster.
Appling said the whole scheme was “clearly premeditated,” and the student was found in violation of the academic integrity policy.
Google too good to be true
Students may think they are savvy with Google, but professors can give them a run for their money.
In certain languages, there are different ways to say the same thing. You can pick the traditional way, a slang way or a more sophisticated phrasing. In one foreign language class at Clemson, a student did not realize this and plugged work into Google Translate, Appling said. Google spit out an answer using a conventional structure the student had not learned. The professor plugged in the same words into Google Translate and figured out what the student had done. “The sentences didn’t work out right,” Appling said.
The student was charged. Despite this case, Appling said, there are generally very few charges in foreign language classes.