Academics and students nationwide agree that cheating is on the rise, but not everyone agrees it is such a bad thing — at least not in all forms.
According to a survey of 218 Northwestern undergraduates in Norris University Center conducted by The Daily, 20 percent of students said it is not at all wrong to copy homework for an assignment worth a small percentage of a course’s grade.
Keith Fisher, a McCormick senior, said he has copied down homework solutions from classmates before. A lot of students in his classes do, he said.
“It takes a moral obligation to not buy into copying a problem set,” said Fisher, adding that it is easy because professors allow group collaboration. “It was a really hard thing not to do.”
Music sophomore Andrew Nogal said students in his Winter Quarter French class copied answers from students in another class who had the same assignments due a week earlier.
“I can’t say it really seems that wrong to me since the assignment due dates allowed for that kind of assistance,” Nogal said. “I consider that exams, tests and large papers are worth more value to the grading system, so I think that type of cheating is worse.”
According to the non-scientific survey, 76 percent said it’s “absolutely wrong” to cheat on exams — 22 percent said it’s “somewhat wrong,” while 2 percent said it’s OK to cheat on exams.
Cheating controls
Mark Hoffman, assistant dean for student affairs in the School of Education and Social Policy, handles cases of academic dishonesty involving Education students and courses. He said a lot of students are surprised to learn what NU defines as cheating.
During new student orientation, Hoffman asked a room full of freshmen if they thought submitting the same work for different classes without permission from instructors constituted cheating according to the NU handbook on academic integrity. About half of the students incorrectly responded, “No.”
Last year, the School of Education began requiring new students to take a quiz on the handbook — and land 10 out of 10 — before letting them register for classes.
“I do not know the preparation that each of our students received in their high schools, so this provides a level of understanding,” Hoffman said.
All six NU schools have their own policies regarding academic dishonesty. Many of the schools require students to sign honor pledges and, beginning this past year, all new students had to attend academic integrity orientation.
Other universities employ different tactics to deter cheating. At Stanford University, proctoring is not allowed. Course instructors and teaching assistants must leave the room during exams, and if students have questions, they go into the hall to ask professors for help.
“(When the policy was adopted) it was perceived that there would be enough trust and respect between students and faculty that faculty would not have to monitor,” said George Wilson, Stanford’s program coordinator for judicial affairs.
But Wilson said some students report a lot of cheating still goes on. Many of them say the system is too trusting, he said.
NU’s undergraduate student body is only about 7,800. Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences administrators reported 62 cases of undergraduate cheating in courses last year and more than 57 this year. That is an increase of more than 130 percent from the 1998-99 academic year.
Throwing the Book
The University of Virginia is known for its unique student-run honor committee and one-strike-you’re-out policy. For example, if Virginia students are found to have used the same paper for two classes without instructor permission, they most likely will be expelled, said Nicole Eramo, special assistant to the honor committee at Virginia.
Students, not administrators, decide these policies at Virginia. Every four years a referendum is held to vote on the no tolerance rule, and although the system is highly debated, the committee has continued to support it.
“Generally the thinking is that students are more likely to buy into the process if it’s a student-run system,” Eramo said.
Despite the hard-nosed policy, Virginia has experienced an increase in the instances of academic dishonesty in the past few years, Eramo said. She added that there have been 47 cases investigated this year in a student body of 19,000 undergraduate and graduate students.
When students are accused of cheating at NU, they meet with an associate dean from the school where the cheating allegedly occurred. The dean investigates the case, interviews the student and determines whether academic dishonesty occurred. If the dean decides it has, the student is subject to sanctions, from a letter of warning to permanent expulsion from the university.
Some professors have found ways to thwart cheating before it comes to that. Students sit every other seat during exams, professors pass out multiple copies of a test and some professors even require students to scan their WildCARDs to confirm their identity before taking exams.
Even if students aren’t caught, they will suffer consequences, said Stephen Carr, associate dean of undergraduate engineering in McCormick.
“Whether (cheating) gets caught or not, the price is being paid,” Carr said. “No learning occurred when the student finally resorted to that.”
