The latest Wired News includes an article that discusses how a University of
Virginia professor nabbed 122 students for plagiarism using a computer
program he wrote himself. The program basically compares papers and looks
for phrases shared between papers. Using this technique, the professor
caught 122 of 500 students in his class cheating. All the students caught
were referred to the schools Honor committee.
(http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,43561,00.html)
As a seasoned systems administrator in a college department and former
student myself, I know that in a college environment, the efforts to which
some students will go to cheat show an astonishing amount of
creativity---breaking into accounts, exploiting lack of permission control
on other users' accounts, searching through the recycle bins, etc. The use
of technology in this environment has made cheating easier, and harder to
trace.
The risk is that some of the students are probably innocent, merely being
guilty of having their own papers copied without their knowledge. Indeed,
some of the students claim towards the end of the article that exactly that
has happened.
Unfortunately, the technology of online composition and submission of papers
(as typically done at most Universities) lacks sufficient security,
encryption, and authentication standards.
Richard W Kaszeta, Engineer, University of MN, ME Dept
rich@kaszeta.org http://www.kaszeta.org/rich [Richard Kaszeta via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 39]
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