September 26, 1997

Hawk-eyed profs catching more cheaters

The ink gave it away.

A careful look at the red checkmarks exposed a student who tried to cheat. After all exams were returned to the class, the student filled in the answers on an exam page originally left blank. Marks were also added in red ink, the same colour the instructor used to correct the exams. The student then tried to convince the professor the marks on that page were mistakenly not recorded.

The instructor was suspicious. The ink was analyzed. The student was caught.

It's one of many cases of academic offences that occurred on campus last year and reached the discipline officer.

"It tells you how clever students are in trying to cheat but also how clever professors are in catching them," says Gretchen Hess, discipline officer.

Hess says academic offences have gone up each year since the U of A began keeping track more than three years ago.

In fact, the 1996-97 year saw the number of academic offences climb to 25, ranging from plagiarism, cheating and misrepresentation of facts. That's more than three times the number from the year before.

And these include only the cases that reach her office. Most are solved at the dean's level in each of the faculties.

It's not known why there was such an increase, whether more students are cheating or more professors are sharpening their methods of detection.

One person who has definitely changed some things is Brian Nielsen, the former discipline officer. He's basically seen all the tricks and now runs a tight ship when it comes to exam time.

"I don't want to catch people. I want to prevent it," says the physical education and recreation professor.

Nielsen says he seats students alphabetically to ensure people do not sit beside their friends. He asks for identification numbers to be printed in ink, not pencil, which can be easily erased. That way, cheaters can't plunk their student numbers down on an exam written by a star student. Nielsen also passes a list around for names. Then, with the help of lab assistants who recognize faces, he makes sure the students are who they say they are. Finally, the former discipline officer ensures he is not easily distracted when it's time for students to hand in exams.

Nielsen says many students are not aware of what constitutes an academic offence. And when they are not sure of the answer, they ask their friends, who may give them erroneous information.

Most students honest

That's why Nielsen regularly cautions athletes, who may stress out over school, practice and game schedules, to avoid getting advice from teammates. For instance, many students do not know it is illegal to hand in the same assignment to two different classes.

"One student turned in another student for doing this," recalls Nielsen.

Some students know when to do the right thing.

"In another case, a student refused to write an exam 15 minutes before starting time after finding out what was on it," says Nielsen. "This student couldn't take the exam in good conscience. The willingness to take action on integrity was amazing." Apparently, even some cheaters have integrity. Nielsen remembers a student who was caught for paying another student to write an exam. It was the "mercenary" exam writer who had a guilty conscience and turned himself in. The other was expelled.

There are other methods of taking an easy way out.

And the Internet has certainly made it easier.

Know what's on the 'Net

It does not take much effort to conduct a search in any subject area and get information, articles, graphs or pictures that have yet to be published in any journal or newspaper and include them in an assignment.

Nielsen says many students feel anything on the Internet belongs in that vast realm of the "public domain" and does not have to be cited.

Not so, says Martin Kratz, a lawyer with expertise in computers and the Internet, who teaches part time in the Faculty of Law.

"Materials on the Internet are protected by copyright, and are protected to the same extent as articles in books and journals are." Students have to do more than cite the URL address. Kratz suggests downloading the information on a disk because that site may not exist in the future, if professors need to check a source.

Professors need to familiarize themselves with what's out there on the Internet, too, says Ken Munro, associate dean in the Faculty of Arts. It's a time consuming process, says Munro, but it makes it easier to catch plagiarists.

"Surprisingly, it's the old-fashioned system of cheating that's common-taking large chunks of work as their own." Munro says he sees about four or five cases of academic offences each year in his faculty.

That's about the same number in the Faculty of Science, says Graham Chambers, associate dean. Chambers says he's not sure if professors catch all the cases or simply see the tip of the iceberg.

"Students seriously underestimate how much expertise professors have in their fields," says Chambers, and that many can easily recognize scholarly work and ideas in essays. Chambers says sometimes students are caught because of sheer bad luck, like the case of one student who plagiarized work done by a student at another university. It so happens the U of A instructor was on the graduate examining council and remembered refereeing the work.

Professors in Science, says Chambers, have to deal with a gray area of students working on assignments together. How much is too much, and where must one draw the line?

Gretchen Hess certainly knows where to draw the line.

"During my university years, (which were not at the U of A) there were some classes where everybody cheated, and others where no one dared. I want to have a university where no one dares to cheat."

Academic offences	1995-96	1996-97
Plagiarism:	2	6
Cheating:	1	12
Misrepresentation of facts:	4	7
TOTALS:	7	25
Penalties	1995	1996
Conduct probation:	0	1
Suspension under 1 year:	3	12
Suspension 1-2 years:	0	5
Suspension more than 2 years:	0	1
Expulsions:	1	3

(Note: the number of charges is greater than the number of penalties because students can be charged with more than one offence.)

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