
As Computer Coding Classes Swell, So Does Cheating - ilamont
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/us/computer-science-cheating.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
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naftaliharris
It's pretty surprising students think they can get away with this. If there's
any class you'd get caught in, it'd be a CS class. In the CS classes I took in
undergrad and grad school, the professors would tell everyone they would be
using automated plagiarism detectors, and even explain a bit about how they
worked and explicitly say they were smart enough to detect the "rename-the-
variables" trick.

That said, I've got to imagine that claims that "as many as 20 percent of the
students in one 2015 computer science course were flagged for possible
cheating" are a misrepresentation or a misunderstanding, on the part of the
journalist. I mean, sure, if you set the threshold for the plagiarism detector
at a low level, you can flag 20%, 50%, or however many students you want for
"possible cheating", but it's not necessarily a real thing.

