Some human beings have been cheating ever since someone learned how to do it. It does not meet with my approval, but I do not get too uptight about it. My feeling is that students who do cheat on their schoolwork are only hurting themselves. In the end, if they do not know a subject, they will not do well at their job. That will be punishment enough as far as I am concerned.
I believe it is difficult to prove cheating so I have developed ways to try and detect this kind of behavior. One thing I look for are files date stamped the exact date and time. Friends working together, or husband and wife combos, frequently make this error. Another thing I do is grade all of one chapter at a time. Small errors can be seen repeated over and over again, but exact duplicate files really catch my attention.
When I discover this, which is rare, I give a zero for a grade. Then each student receives a carefully worded e-mail requesting an explanation.
Next up: summer schedule difficulties
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