Technological Arms Race to Cheating

Title of Article: Professors Use Technology to Fight Student Cheating

Link to Artice: http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2008/10/03/professors-use-technology-to-fight-student-cheating?PageNr=1

      Professors are using technology to deal with their students' cheating. One statistic notes that the number of students who admitted to cheating has risen from twenty percent in the mid 1900's to over fifty percent in 2002. That number has come down a little and there are good reasons why. Many professors are using technology to catch a cheater or prevent cheating at all. Some universities have constructed super secure testing centers with cheat-resistant computers. There are several new software companies that have compiled databases full of millions of papers, books, articles, and Web pages. When a student turns in their homework, it can be matched up with this collection of resources and screened for any similarities in writing. The professor can then judge whether or not the student plagiarized. These softwares are not perfect, but they have helped reduce the number of students attempting to cheat at certain universities. Some schools are encouraging students in online classes to install software that locks down computers from everything but the test and allows the teacher to monitor the student's surroundings through a webcam. One teacher creates web sites that contain the same questions as those on the homework, but the answers are wrong. These web sites can easily be found when the questions are put in search engines and the teacher will know if the student is cheating if they have the false answers provided on the web site. Another way professors are reducing the likelihood of cheating is by tightening up security in testing rooms. They do not allow any food, bottles, or electronic devices in the rooms and students are not allowed to wear hats with a brim, jackets, and sweatshirts.
      I found this article extremely eye-opening. I had no idea the measures to prevent cheating had come so far, not to mention this article was posted over two years ago. I realized that a lot of students were likely to cheat sometime throughout their academic career. Technology is so advanced that it is almost tempting you to cheat when you are stumped on a question. Also, many classrooms have large numbers of students and little supervision during tests. Cheating is the simple way to earn a good grade without putting in the effort studying. In the article, one student said that it is easy to get around the companies that try to catch plagiarism by changing every third word. A representative of that company then said they are making improvements that will be able to catch things like this. I think this is one of the biggest problems in school today. When asked to write a paper, many students will just cut and paste information from the Internet. I think this new software will force a lot of students to do their own work and develop the skill of writing. Not only do these teachers want to catch the students that are cheating, but they want to help these students understand the right ways to finish their assignments. Some of the tactics that students used to cheat were quite remarkable. I had never heard of using a Bluetooth headset under your hair and chewing bubble gum in order to disguise talking to someone that could feed you the answers. Sometimes I think it would be less work just studying for the test. Overall, it sounds like great strides have been made to restrict cheating and create a level playing field for all.