Profs aim to repel cheating

Advanced technology, such as calculators and cell phones, has increased the opportunities for students to cheat on college campuses.

"I’m sure that nobody thinks cheating is acceptable," senior Meghan Marville said. "But it’s really unfair when I study hard for a test and then find out that the girl next to me got all the answers from a friend in the other section of the same course. It takes away my motivation to work hard in the class."

Marville said that, in her opinion, the most common example of using technology to cheat on a test is to add formulas and other information into a calculator.

"When I was in high school, my teacher would have to go around and look at each student’s calculator to make sure there wasn’t any information in it that could be used for cheating," Marville said.

Physics professor Don Chodrow said the physics and chemistry departments require that students use a model of calculator that is not programmable on tests. This policy started a few years ago due to student complaints about how easy it was for other students to cheat on tests and quizzes.

Chodrow also serves as a representative for the physics department on the Honor Council. Council representatives serve on hearing boards and committees when selected for a case.

"I don’t expect to run into cheating in my upper-level major classes," Chodrow said. "You can’t get that far by cheating." He also said that he expects to be able to trust physics majors and doesn’t always stay in the classroom when giving them a test.

Chodrow said when he gives a test in a large class, he alternates copies of the test to prevent students from cheating off the paper next to them. He hands out a yellow copy and a white copy. Each test has the same questions but in a different order. He also stays in the classroom to "keep an eye on things" for larger classes.

Business professor Donald Musselman said he changes his assignments every year to prevent students from cheating. If he and another professor teach the same course, Musselman said they give slightly different assignments.

In the 27 years Musselman has taught at JMU, he has brought three cases to the Honor Council and has dealt with one case privately with the student.

There is new technology available to professors to help combat new ways of cheating. According to China View, in Beijing a new device has been created to detect cell phone use within a 30-meter distance. This will prevent students from text messaging the answers of questions to each other.

According to the state universities of New York, there are over 24 sites where students can go to purchase papers or find answers. But professors have ways to find out who has purchased assignments off the Internet. These sites include plagiarism.org or wordchecksystems.com. There, professors can type in keywords or phrases and compare the results to students’ work.