Efforts help track cheating

A big assignment is due today. \nRather than take a zero, many students might just take the answers from someone in their class who has them. More and more students are making this choice at IU. \nBut efforts are being made nationally to give professors help in tracking down cheaters. \n"The very fact that there are national efforts to provide aides to faculty for detection suggest that this is a problem of wide magnitude," said Pam Freeman, associate dean of students and director of the office of student ethics.\nAccording to the 2002 Office of Student Ethics' Academic Misconduct Report, there were 292 cases of students cheating here on campus. However, this is only the number of cheaters caught. Cheating on college campuses is a nationwide problem.\nAccording to the IU Code of Students Rights, Responsibilities and Conduct, cheating is including but not limited to the following: \n• using external assistance on any "in-class" or "take-home" examination; \n• using another person as a substitute in the taking of an examination or quiz; \n• stealing an examination or other course materials; \n• allowing others to conduct research or prepare work for them; \n• collaborating with other persons on a particular project and submitting a copy of a written report -- which is represented as a student's individual work; \n• using an unauthorized assistance in a laboratory, at a computer terminal, or on field work; \n• submitting substantial portions of the same academic work for credit or honors more than once without permission of the instructor to whom the work is being submitted \n• and altering a grade or score in any way. \nThe use of fabrications, plagiarism, interference with another student's work, violation of course rules and facilitating academic dishonesty are also against the University's rules. \nStudents who've been caught cheating have failed courses, been expelled, suspended or been required to retake a course. \nFreeman suggests that if a student cheats, the value of an IU degree is compromised. \n"It isn't just about you," she said. "It's about all IU students and alumni, the University's reputations and standards, but this doesn't mean it does not have a negative impact on you."\nGetting caught cheating is not just a quick, manageable problem. It takes months and months of time and energy to resolve these issues. \n"It's not even worth it," junior Mike Hodge said. "If you can't do your own work, then you shouldn't be here. Everyone's been in that situation before, and it's the lazy decision to make. We've all done it, but we left that behavior in high school."\nEconomics professor Peter Olson has spent a lot of his time and energy dealing with this issue. \nOlson said he prefers to try to prevent cheating before it happens by reducing opportunity during exams, so that students are not tempted. He uses alternate exam forms, assigned seating in every other seat and has three or four associate instructors walking around the room during the exam time. \nOlson said he is troubled by what he calls a cheating "plague" at IU.\n"Ultimately, if our goal in higher education is searching for truth, that goal is compromised when students submit work that's not their own. That's a dishonest act," he said.\nFreeman said students who are struggling in their classes should ask for assistance. \n"You were admitted to this University because people believed in you as a student," she said. "If you are having trouble, there are so many ways to find help."\nFreeman is often invited to classes and dorms to speak about these issues.\n"Too many students compromise their integrity if they can rationalize it, or think that they won't get caught, or they blame it on a poor professor," she said. "This is no justification for a breach of your own integrity." \n-- Contact staff writer Gillian Hurley at ghurley@indiana.edu.