I am from a reputed university in India and despite informing the department professors and higher authorities of the rampant cheating in the online exams, they haven't taken any steps to curb it (they use Google Meet/Zoom proctoring which is basically useless because students can still text and make excuses). They don't even reply to the emails that raise these concerns. They made no effort to change their examination mode for the online semester - by increasing the weightage of take-home/research assignment components in the syllabus. This has taken a toll on the mental health of students like me who did not use unfair means but are now suffering because the university follows relative grading and the skyrocketing averages of the exams have made it next to impossible for us to get grades proportional to our efforts. What should a student do in such a situation? Should he/she start cheating too? Edit: Switching the institute is not possible because this is India — students have to go through a gruesome procedure to get admitted into these reputed institutes in the first place. Secondly, the jobs and higher education somewhat depend on the grades of the student so this unfair disadvantage for 2 semesters straight without cheating would be hell for any honest person.
123880
Context: A friend of mine is ending their first year in a community college (in France, called IUT, 2-year diploma) near my school, and apparently the school administration is quite lenient about cheating during exams ; I asked a few other friends of mine that are currently in second year there, and they have confirmed that nearly everybody cheats during exams, mostly because the questions don't change from one year to the other, allowing students to get the exams in advance and preparing for the questions. An important part of the exams are Moodle quizzes, which show the correct answers after submitting, and don't get modified from year to year either.  Problem: My friend does not want to cheat, for obvious reasons. The problem is that the way this kind of college works (in France) puts students in competition with each other ; your ranking among the other students is very important and is a determinant factor in your chances of being accepted in engineering schools after your second year (which is what most people in that community college do).  Multiple people have already tried reporting the cheating to professors and the college's administration, to no avail. Most professors don't seem to care, and the few that say they do care about cheating never act upon it. This results in mediocre (excuse the harsh term) students having an unfair advantage over good students trying to keep their integrity. This whole situation, combined with the Sars-Cov-2 lockdown has had quite a toll on her mental health.  My stance is to never cheat, but I'm having more and more trouble telling her to stay strong and do the same. It's gotten to the point that not cheating can have a significant negative impact on her future, and I couldn't help but feel responsible if she were to fail her year because of other people's dishonesty.  What is the best behavior to adopt here?
112731
While it is an unethical academic practice, it is a fact that most recommendation letters for MS degrees in US and Europe from countries like India and China are written by students themselves. Students apply en masse; the faculty strength in departments in many universities is small; the few professors hardly get the time to write recommendations for all applying students. Moreover a 4-year engineering degree is dominated by coursework and professors are unlikely to get to know students outside the classroom.   Let us set aside the question of whom to blame for this practice and look at the question that comes up on most applicants' minds:    "In the event that I have to write a recommendation letter on my own, what are the points I need to bear in mind?"    I have the following points:   Ensuring similarity of language among all letters from a particular professor maturity of presentation and avoidance of blandishment Creating tonal differences among different recommendation letters.   Could someone elaborate on these points? The third one is oft-quoted but is found to be very tough to execute in practice.
120650
There is a gap between the online help available on stack overflow and the offline help of real-world mentors, this is my modest proposal to correct that.   Here is a link to my original article:   Here is the content from said article:   First off, I love Stack Overflow. In the way that only someone who taught himself programming via outdated books, and old-school programming forums can. I think it’s the best way to ask most programming questions on the web, but that doesn’t mean it can’t get better.   Background: Today I just helped my girlfriend  @rubyku signup for a stack overflow account. I did this because she found the exact answer to her question already answered on Stack Overflow and felt the person who answered the question rightfully deserved some recognition. After we got her signed up, we went to give credit where credit is due, and “up vote” the answer, when suddenly we discover wham! we can’t because she doesn’t have enough reputation points. So she closed the window and moved on. While she got the question answered, she didn’t engage with the community and was frustrated by the interaction.  Reputation: On Stack Overflow reputation is measured in points and does two things, it keeps spammers and people trying to game the systems at bay. It also encourages users to provide good answers and ask good questions. I think the reputation system does a great job to accomplish these things, but it inadvertently does something else. It discourages new users from becoming part of the community and engaging since someone who just started can’t fully participate. They first have to ask or answer a question to get reputation.   Solution: Use mentors to merge real life reputation with online reputation, since i’m mentoring someone in person, i should be able to mentor them on Stack Overflow. I can vouch that she isn’t a bot, or a spammer, and I can give her real world motivation and incentive to get involved online and off. It should (could) work like this: I give up some chunk of my reputation to this new Stack Overflow member, and in return I get notified any time they make an action. This allow the mentor to help guide a student’s questions, comments, and up votes as only a real live person can, while giving accountability to student. But why would someone want to be a mentor, give up their points, and be bugged constantly? Besides caring about someone and wanting to see them succeed, there is a greedy reason built in the system. Since a mentor gets notified about any post the student makes, they get first dibs on questions, and in the long run if they are consistently helpful and answer their student’s questions, then their reputation will increase dramatically more than if they had never given up points to become a mentor.   Whether or not Stack Overflow ever implements such a model, we as programmers should always remember that there was a time when we needed help and sometimes an IRC channel or forum post, just wasn’t enough. While many of us are “self taught” programmers the most successful of us had some help along the way. Stack Overflow is a tool to help someone become better at programming, but not THE solution. We need to start bridging the gap between people who care, and people who need help. The more we use technology to bring these two groups of people closer together, the more we all win.
91336
... or should I offer them a separate formular/window where the user can fill the data to the related person?  Its about entering marks/grades of pupils for a certain subject. So sliding to the wrong line could be bad or good for the one or other pupil...  A separate Window could help, but the productivity is smaller.  What do you think?
122739
This is a question about studying for the Putnam examination (and, secondarily, other high-difficulty proof-based math competitions like the IMO). It is not about the history of the competition, the advisability of participating, the career trajectories of former participants, or other such things. This is a question about how one can most effectively prepare to do well.   Many such questions have been asked before on this site. The answers, while helpful, all seem to boil down to recommendations of the same standard canon of books with the encouragement to do more problems. This is very good advice, but I want to approach the topic from a different angle.   We have a wealth of talent on this website, and in particular many users who have done quite well at these competitions. I would like to hear their personal stories. In particular, how did you prepare, and what kind of time commitment did you put forth? And advice, especially practical study tips, is always welcome. :)  edit: Also, it seems to me that the majority of people who do very well at the Putnam had developed the majority of their skill in high school, and focused mainly on their classes in college (while attending whatever Putnam seminar their college offered). I would appreciate comments on this matter too.   (Motivation: It seems to me like the role of talent is vastly overestimated in mathematics, and in mathematics competitions in particular, to the point where the Putnam exam gets used as a sort of pseudo-IQ test. Of course the people who do well have gifts, but it also seems that, without fail, they all have a history of doing many hours of mathematics a day for years on end. For example, I recall reading an interview with Tao where he admitted his childhood consisted of nothing but math and computer games. I am trying to gather some evidence on this matter [and advice for Putnam preparation!]. Please keep the answers focused on the actual question, though.)
99895
I  am a PhD student in Mathematics. I have found one advisor in my local University who does not know my research field at all, but  has allowed me to choose my own problems and solve them independently. Initially, I was quite happy as I didn't need to switch places (which I don't want at all). The problem started when my advisor could not assist me in solving the problems I chose. It even happened that I chose a problem to work on and when I told him about it, he said that's an excellent problem and I should solve it.Later on after meeting another professor  in this field he told me that it has been solved long before and hence I had no point working on that again. He does listen to me when I say something about the problems but fails to give me any critical feedback in my topic. I searched the web but there are so many directions of the topic I am working on, I am feeling puzzled which way to go. Moreover there is no research group existing in this field in my local University with whom I can discuss or get some inputs abut my problems. I am unable to answer the following questions of mine which is affecting my research considerably:  1.Has my decision to stay in my hometown and not go to reputed institutes and talking to experienced professors backfired on me? How can I come out of this situation? 2.Is  PhD done in this way only without any help from anyone ?At least my advisor says so.  Any comments/advice will be helpful.
28914
Browser and mobile games commonly have global highscore tables. It's also common for those tables to contain scores of 2,147,483,647 &mdash; where people have figured out the webservice call that reports scores and used it to record a fictitious score.  For simple puzzle games, we can defend against this by including a record of every move the player made (and any random seeds used to generate the level) with the score-reporting call. The entire game can then be reproduced and verified on the server.  However, this quickly becomes infeasible for anything larger than Pac-man.  How else can cheating of this kind be prevented?
107516
In my class, we have project groups of 4 or 5 students. This period has everything to do with game development. The project is to build a XNA game for children at primary school.  Now, there is one group of students in my class, who snitched a game from the internet and are going to hand that in. I saw a Facebook post from one of the students about "their" game, and a fellow student found almost the exact same game on a Dutch game site.  What is according to you the right way of handling this -in my eyes, plagiarism? Should I inform the project teacher, to have them exposed to the exam committee?
104332
I am a 2nd year undergraduate student in Aerospace Engineering, in India. I am really willing to go into Academia as a researcher. I am specifically interested in Aerospace Controls. Some points to consider :  1) I love the fast internet access in university, so that I can research and learn all I want.  2) I have read up a few research papers regarding error reduction in GPS measurements, when I was doing a Supervised Project under a professor. Reading research papers are gruelling, but after 2-3 days of bending your mind over them and finally understanding what the author intended to say, I feel elated. In this specific case, I read up a few algorithms and got excited on the prospect of developing my own algorithms for error reductions.  3) I have a fair academic standing with a cumulative grade point of greater than 9 out of 10  So I would like a few pointers on what I can do now, as an undergraduate student to prepare for my PhD.
27724
I don't mean misconduct that will make him get expelled or miss his academic requirement. He will have received sanction like making an apology or suspension for a month if the university finds it out earlier. But the student now has graduated and will not be back. Can the university still do something to him?
104588
I sometimes spend too much time on grading students' homework in the class I am a TA for. I am asking if there are some ways to improve grading speed? I hope that I can learn some useful tips from experienced people here.  For example, which one do you think will be faster, grading student by student, or problem by problem?
97984
I'm writing a small online flash game that keeps high scores of players. Obviously I'd like to keep the players from cheating and getting an arbitrarily high score.   What are the most common methods for cheating in flash games and what can I do to make it hard to use them?
52732
I suspect a user is cheating. He's cheated in the past but I don't want to get into it here. Instead I want to contact a moderator about this. What is the best way to go about this? Should I send an email to the SO team or flag a post in question? Though it isn't about any one post but instead a pattern of behavior. I want to provide some fairly detailed findings, at least the best findings a regular user can provide. Also, do moderators have the ability to look into who is casting votes?
68211
I am a first year Ph. D student, and I have been working on a new topic of research.  I worked day and night to prove something new and verified it. I began my Ph. D while my supervisor was on travel, but he returned before I had been here for long.  When he returned, he told me we have to stop and not continue without any reasonable reasons.  After a few months he began treating me poorly---always belittling and underestimating---although I got two grants from a top conference, made videos and podcasts, and constantly received praise for my good work and personality.    It seems that I have been treated as a competitor, not a collaborator.  Although agreeing with my approaches in private, my supervisor said false words to the committee to take the decision and stop my Ph. D work!  It is not surprising, as there was another former senior Ph. D student who I met on campus, who was not allowed to defend his Ph. D: this same supervisor claimed he was not able to finish his dissertation although he had published in a peer reviewed journal and having citation as well, it was scary and not familiar.  In front of committee, he lied, and said something without proving. I asked if he can make a detailed constructive criticism, but he could not.  All I can say that they are a gang literally, and he said words that show that he is jealous and doesn't want to see me having self confidence in my self. I know no one will believe me, but this is the truth.  Honestly, I am distressed and I'm losing sleep.  I had this dream where there were many people who saw me fail.  All things considered, I don't know whether what happened is good or bad, and I definitely don't know what I should do next!  I would be grateful for your advice and whether there is someone has encountered any similar situation.
100006
Per definition, grading by a curve usually means that the students are assigned grades based on the statistical distribution of the test/exam results. No matter what, say 20% of students will always fail, and only say 10% will get a perfect mark. I see a number of serious problems with this, and I fail to see anything in favor. In my view, for a fair system, the following are necessary; and neither are fulfilled by grading by curve:  A test/exam should have clear and absolute rules and requirements. Here, the students do not know what are the exact requirements to get the result they desire, as the point limits are, obviously, only known after the test/exam. The grade of the test should directly correspond to how much of the course material did the student learn and understand. The fact that the same ratio of comprehended material can give an A in one year, then a C in the next year,  tells that the requirements of the course itself are also very unclear. Similarly, the grade should directly and absolutely reflect the knowledge of the student. An A+ should worth the same every time in the same test. But here, the grade only reflects the student's knowledge relative to class members. It can't be correlated to the amount of learned knowledge. The grade should only be influenced by factors under the direct influence of the student. Here, the mark depends on factors like how &quot;bright&quot; are the other students, how much effort they put into preparation, and even on whether they cheated. Hence, the student's mark is influenced by circumstances completely outside of his control, and unrelated to his knowledge. No matter the collective results, a given number of students will always inevitably fail. If almost everyone is a genius, there will be the same number of failures as if everyone did poorly. Good students may fail, and bad students may pass. In a similar way as the point before, a student shouldn't be faced with the negative, possibly serious, consequences of failing, just because by chance there were a lot of very bright students in the class. Also, it creates and encourages an unhealthy and harmful class dynamic. Ideally, the students help each other in preparation. If an otherwise smart student doesn't understand some part and is roadblocked, others would explain. If a student missed a class due to valid reasons, classmates help to give and explain the missed material. But learning by curve creates an artificial race situation, where the students are actively harming themselves by helping others. Decimating the collective amount of obtained knowledge, this goes against the very spirit of education.  All these problems, and I'm struggling to come up with any argument in favor of grading by curve. In fact, I see only two cases where it may be used, and both of them are a fault of administration:  The department expects an exact number of students to pass the course. This is against the spirit of education IMO. If a student is good enough, he should pass. If not, he shouldn't. Regardless of others. The responsible teacher failed to set exact, absolute, and clear requirements, and/or is lazy or unable to do so. Because of his fault, the students are exposed to an unfair grading system.  Am I missing something here? Are there any objective arguments in favour of grading by curve, and what are these? If not, or they are weak, what are the reasons it's still used, apparently widely?
102282
I have just found that a student has posted one of their assignment questions on a forum and is seeking help in getting a solution.  I have a good idea who the student is, but no definitive proof. How would you handle this situation?
66452
I can't help but notice that even in CS, professors' websites are almost always difficult to navigate, poorly-organized, and just generally hard to look at (poorly-tiled backgrounds, inconsistent fonts, etc.).  Why is this? Is it expected of academics? I'll be applying to graduate programs in the Fall and took a few hours to update my personal website, and was outright told by a professor that it was "too much". If I have a "fancy-looking" website, will this reflect negatively on me as an applicant?