A new study in the U.K. has found that cheating isn’t just an undergraduate sport anymore.  Masters and Doctoral students are now playing the cheat game.  Used to be, spotting cheaters was relatively easy.  Check for odd pieces of paper hidden up sleeves or tiny writing on the arms hidden under sleeves.  Strained neck muscles from looking over someone's shoulder was another. tell tale sign of a cheater.

Cheating is happening especially in the computer science area.  Websites have sprung up in India specifically offering coding services from $10 to $200 depending on the extent of the coding.  Heck some sites allow students to actually gather bids and take the lowest rate.

Birmingham City University has been monitoring known websites used for cheating since 2004.  Over 1,000 students worldwide have been found cheating using the internet by the University.  One doctoral student farmed out his dissertation and turned it in section by section as expected by his professors.  

Cheating is not new nor is today’s cheating even creative.  No, the creative part of cheating is now relegated to the web were just about anything can be bought.  Websites offering to provide term papers on a variety of subjects have been around for years, but cheating now seems to have become big business for some in India, at least in the area of providing coding for computer science projects.

Finding a better way of doing something is admirable. But cheating doesn’t do that.  Cheating tries to short cut the system altogether.  As with so many different aspects of life, cheaters generally spend more time and effort trying to get around the system than they would if they just did the studying and the work they spend so much time trying to avoid. 

More and more websites have been popping up offering cheat services.  So many in fact, that all of them can’t be monitored.

When I completed my masters thesis in journalism, I had to present my thesis to a panel of three professors who questioned me extensively on my work.  If I had been unable to answer the questions asked, I would never have gotten my degree.

If someone just wants a degree to put on their resume, heck they can buy that on line, without the expense of years of work, high tuition or paying others to do the work for them. 

The point of getting the degree and doing the work is to learn the material and stretch your knowledge and thinking.  Cheaters never get the underlying reason for doing it in the first place. 

A degree won’t bring in more money if you never learned the information in the first place.  It will only make you look like a fool.

Entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 3:36 pm under Technology, Internet.  Print This Post