[HN Gopher] A billion-dollar industry helping students at Austra...
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A billion-dollar industry helping students at Australian
universities cheat
Author : adrian_mrd
Score : 39 points
Date : 2022-07-30 19:51 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.abc.net.au)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.abc.net.au)
| alexashka wrote:
| Good. Paperclip maximizer is working as intended.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| My wife stopped teaching remote CS classes mostly because the
| cheating was so completely out-of-hand that grading was pointless
| and miserable.
|
| Doesn't matter how creative or new or engaging the homework
| assignments were. Over half the class pays someone, shares work,
| or finds someone to do it for them.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| Because can you honestly say that you paid $80K to learn? That
| was your primary goal of spending all that money?
|
| It certainly was not mine. Learning wasn't in my top 5 reasons
| to attend university.
| mlindner wrote:
| It was certainly mine and learn a lot I did. I took ethics
| very strongly as did my university. My friend had to re-do a
| class final project because some of his team members cheated,
| even though he didn't himself. His team members were expelled
| from the university.
| Glawen wrote:
| You have a point indeed. You don't pay that much money to
| fail. That puts countries with free university in another
| perspective
| thegginthesky wrote:
| I graduated in a country with a free university, and the
| students still cheated, but most failed. The teachers were
| more strict with much more challenging assignments and
| tests, plus a lot of teachers would allow open books, but
| the difficulty of the exams was out of this world.
|
| Half the class would fail, and because of the difficulty,
| chances are, If you cheated, it was also wrong.
|
| If the teacher caught you cheating, it was a big fat zero
| right away, and there would be a board of teachers to
| protect the decision.
|
| And the University is free,even to re-enroll, you only need
| to pass the entrance exam, which was super easy for any
| course except for the doctor, law, or engineering. (CS is
| super easy to enter because they have more spots than
| students interested in it)
|
| So I don't know; people will cheat rather than put in the
| hard work and learn.
| mlindner wrote:
| Why wasn't your wife getting these people thrown out of the
| classes?
| josephcsible wrote:
| At a lot of schools, the administration basically tells the
| professors to look the other way, because the alternative is
| giving up a lot of tuition income.
| Rodeoclash wrote:
| The Universities in Australia make so much money from
| international students that they're also disincentived to prevent
| cheating. Theirs been many anecdotes posted to the Australian
| subreddit of professors discovering cheating students and being
| strongly discouraged by the faculty to punish them.
|
| Ultimately the universities are exchanging reputation for near
| term profits. When I hire in Melbourne for graduate software
| engineers the university they trained at is not a signal to me at
| all (despite all the advertising for say Melbourne University
| promoting how employees regard their distinguished degrees) and I
| rely purely on technical ability.
| Thorentis wrote:
| Completely agree with both paragraphs.
|
| And unfortunately, in my experience as both a university tutor
| back in the day, and now as a hiring manager for some
| candidates - international students, even those who studied at
| local universities - are by far the least qualified in all
| areas.
|
| The international student game is a billion dollar industry
| that lines the pockets of university staff, allows constant
| round-the-year renovations of university facilities, and allows
| the universities to present themselves as "diverse and
| inclusive" learning environments.
|
| The problem will never be solved as long as money is involved.
| angus-g wrote:
| > that lines the pockets of university staff
|
| This is of course only the administrative/management levels.
| The staff doing the actual teaching and grading are lumped
| with all the work "as part of the job", and also the money
| doesn't see the post-grad or research sides of the
| university.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| I've interviewed so many masters CS degree holders from
| prestigious schools.
|
| 0 of them, 0, could declare variables and get through hello
| world.
| wincy wrote:
| Ten years ago it felt like a huge gamble that I dropped out
| of the computer science program at college and just started
| writing code. But based on all I've heard, and based on my
| career experience, as long as I can write code halfway
| competently and communicate well with others, it sounds
| like I'm going to have a job.
|
| It really helps alleviate hints of imposter syndrome,
| honestly.
| [deleted]
| wincy wrote:
| I was responsible for helping with interviews at my last job,
| and there seemed to be no bearing between having a degree and
| technical aptitude. We'd do a two hour pair programming session
| where we'd discuss architecture decisions, why you write code a
| certain way, etc. and it seemed pretty difficult to fake out
| the process.
|
| However sometimes people wouldn't even get to that point! We
| had a person interview with a masters in mechanical engineering
| over video chat and I swear he was getting coached via a chat
| app or something during the interview, because he kept glancing
| at his screen, especially when we'd ask questions.
|
| Another person who had a computer science degree and was a team
| lead with over six years experience very confidently asserted
| that "interfaces make software more secure". Trying to give him
| the benefit of the doubt we asked him to explain what he meant
| by that and his explanation was basically "they just are".
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| So... bring back the "old school" exams, pens, papers, large
| classroom, one professor, 2, 3 TAs walking around, no phones or
| computers, only paper and pen, and since it's university level,
| memorizing stuff is stupid, so either let them have books/notes
| or atleast a piece of paper (or more) with formulas or whatever
| is needed (because let's be fair, "cheat sheets" will always be a
| posibility, and even the best doctors and engineers google stuff
| all the time).
|
| Some minimal cheating is still possible, but otherwise, it's a
| lot better than the current online situation.
| josephcsible wrote:
| It's fine to have exams on computers, as long as they're
| university-owned computers in a lab and not, say, the students'
| personal laptops at home.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| which member of the covid-stricken workforce is going to
| provide, administer and police that? and how well?
|
| students would just remotely connect to their laptops at home
| Thorentis wrote:
| Unfortunately COVID stopped this for a while, but agree this is
| the only way to stop this kind of behavior.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Doesn't matter. I saw 12 students submit the same binary for an
| assignment and 0 failed the class, let alone were expelled as
| the "academic integrity policy" would imply.
|
| International students are cash cows, and college is a joke.
| czstar wrote:
| I teach at a college. I stopped caring about cheating a while
| back. It's not worth the hassle of reporting a student who
| cheats and the college needs students. College is being
| treated as a business and the client is the student.
| mlindner wrote:
| Please don't contribute to the problem. If you catch them
| cheating, get them thrown out of the university.
| czstar wrote:
| At my salary? Not worth the trouble. Especially since no
| one in the chain of command wants to deal with it and
| nothing of real consequence will happen. The problem is
| far greater than me and it's not worth it to try to care.
| [deleted]
| mlindner wrote:
| You're not teaching your students well if you teach them
| cheating is rewarded. Not to mention the other students
| who are forced to learn that cheating is rewarded by the
| other students cheating and must cheat to compete. IMO
| you shouldn't even be a teacher if that's your opinion.
| czstar wrote:
| I don't grade on a curve. Each person's grade is
| independent of each other student. There is no
| competition for grades as such. Me sucking as a teacher
| is a different matter.
|
| My question to you. Given what I implied about pay and
| what I said about apathy of my bosses on this issue what
| makes you think you'd respond differently than me after
| 25 years in the system?
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| So, it's not the "billion dollar industry"'s fault, but
| colleges that are becoming more of a joke than ever. There is
| a way to stop (atleast most of) the cheating, but if colleges
| are not interested in that, why shame and try to prevent
| people monetizing the thing colleges themselves allow?
| geraldwhen wrote:
| It's a billion(s) dollar industry at fault for sure, but
| perhaps not the one the article mentions.
|
| I don't see college changing any time soon. I work with
| people that still think certain schools are "great schools"
| implying they produce knowledgeable graduates. Even seconds
| after an interview ends in flames because a graduate
| doesn't know how to touch a computer.
| josephcsible wrote:
| I see two main points as to what Chegg is doing wrong:
|
| 1. Their "homework help" service is more of a "do my homework for
| me" service
|
| 2. They intentionally don't require any verification that
| questions submitted are actually from homework rather than from
| an exam
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| Is it chegg or is it the institutions?
|
| I'd posit it's the latter; huge sums of money are at-risk for a
| fail grade not to mention time invested. People want to get on
| with their lives. Meanwhile institutions act as gatekeepers
| while jointly setting arbitrary standards and acting with the
| pretense that they're institutions of higher learning which
| simply isn't the case: they produce licensure for occupations.
| All of that pretense, the arbitrary expectations set makes it
| far more worthwhile to cheat. Why type up a paper on
| Shakespeare in a class deemed mandatory that a student has
| _zero_ interest in or application for? And that can be stated
| about so many facets of college, the textbooks I 've been
| expected to buy are formatted like a dumpster fire. The tuition
| I'm paying for what is essentially proctoring burns my ass. The
| fact I can get superior products across the board and actually
| have a gamut of options in instruction, methods, curriculum and
| resources - at significantly lower cost makes it a whole lot
| more justifiable both at the ethical and at the rational level
| to "cheat", I find it strange that someone might be upset that
| someone is swindling the swindler.
|
| Having said that, I'd propose a bifurcation: actual higher
| learning institutions and vocational institutions. This weird
| amalgam that has developed, by my reckoning at least, results
| in the worst of both worlds.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Justifying cheating because of those points about
| institutions feels like justifying stealing because of high
| inflation.
| Glawen wrote:
| With COVID I think we have reached a new level of cheating, I
| feel that students do not feel anymore ashamed to do it because
| that is what they did during lockdown.
|
| I am amazed at all the possibilities of cheating which were
| technically impossible when I studied. Look at it now, students
| can have answers on chegg. They can translate using DeepL. They
| can find teachers explaining any topic they like on YouTube.
| Seriously there is no excuse to fail anything now. University
| need to do something about it real quick, otherwise their
| diplomas will not be worth anything
| contingencies wrote:
| _University need to do something about it real quick,
| otherwise their diplomas will not be worth anything._
|
| Too late.
| Glawen wrote:
| Why too late? First thing is to ditch multiple choice
| exams, prefer essay type questions. That instantly makes it
| much harder to cheat. Ditch also homework unless they are
| essays, and finally makes exams physically, old school
| style, without computer.
| yata69420 wrote:
| Even as recently as the late 90s or early 2000s, I think
| most people would have concurred that a degree
| represented some amount of training and skills, earned
| with some amount of legitimacy, from most institutions.
|
| I don't think that's true anymore.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| Is it? Neither memorizing information, doing good work
| (beyond what will make the boss happy), nor integrity have
| been important at any of my workplaces.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| I attended a well known university and I graduated before
| COVID.
|
| Cheating in next to universal. You didn't just cheat with
| people you knew. You could go ask any member of the year
| above for assignment solutions and quiz/test answer keys. You
| could ask any member of the prior section for what was on the
| quiz. Student union ran a solutions bank for past tests.
|
| And yeah, plenty of us had Chegg.
|
| Why do we do this? Very few of us went to university to
| learn. We wanted an access pass to the upper middle class.
|
| Same thing with the students I mentor for remote interviews.
| I offer to help them cheat on them by sitting on a second
| webcam and feeding them the answers. Only one has turned me
| down, and not for moral reasons, but because they fear
| getting caught.
|
| If you offered to just give everyone an A for a given course,
| maybe 10% of students would attend.
|
| I am not sure that businesses care all that much, because the
| same skills work in companies too and it is considered
| legitimate outside of the academic world to take the work of
| others. In school, using a library is cheating. At work, it
| is good work.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I went to university long before covid, and all the old
| exams + usually the (professors) solutions were available
| online, mostly on professors own websites, so the students
| would know what types of assignments were on exams and
| could prepare properly (there was still a very wide
| variety).
|
| Exams were done in classrooms, with multiple people
| (usually TAs) watching, pen, paper, usually notes/book or
| even old exams were allowed (or at minimum 1 sheet of
| whatever you wanted on). Yeah sure, some minimal cheating
| was still possible, but not a lot.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| > In school, using a library is cheating.
|
| No, that's _learning_.
|
| Similarly here someone thought that watching YouTube videos
| of lectures is cheating!
|
| The fact that you can't seem to tell what is cheating and
| what is education is... very telling.
| nfw2 wrote:
| I think they might have meant "using a library" in the
| context of computer classes, like sorting a list using a
| library
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| Turn in an assignment using libraries and see what
| happens. You will either get a bad grade or get summoned.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| What has happened to our universities is a tragedy beyond words.
| paulpauper wrote:
| It goes to show how this is a problem that affects everywhere.
| Higher stakes education means more cheating. I think it also
| sheds light on the cynical reality that college is just a very
| expensive ticket to the middle class and learning will always be
| secondary to that.
| mlindner wrote:
| No this just sounds like an Australian problem. Cheating isn't
| the problem. Not expelling people is the problem.
| slavboj wrote:
| Astonishingly, nothing about the demographics of the students
| involved, just a vague implication towards "international
| students". It's not exactly a secret who is taking advantage of
| Australia's efforts to diversify from primary production to
| exporting education as well, but you would have no idea from
| reading the article.
| axpy906 wrote:
| What country would have students that think it's okay to cheat?
| slavboj wrote:
| I have no idea whether they think it's "okay", but Chinese
| students are vastly overrepresented.
| Archelaos wrote:
| Perhaps it is time for more radical thoughts: Should we not
| abolish university exams altogether? Instead the receiving
| institutions (companies, administrations, organisations, etc.)
| should undertake them -- or outsource them to a 3rd party. There
| are some areas, where this is already the case, at least partly,
| such as TOEFL tests for English as a foreign language.
| __d wrote:
| The point of an undergraduate university degree is to represent
| to others that the holder has some level of knowledge and skill
| in a particular subject.
|
| The value to the student is as a key to further opportunities:
| academic, social, commercial. The value to the institution is
| almost entirely financial.
|
| My proposal is that the degree-granting institutions be separated
| from educational institutions.
|
| To get a degree, you submit a request for examination. That will
| be an intensive two or three week long process of written,
| practical, and interview assessments conducted by a team of
| people who attempt to satisfy themselves that you meet the
| requirements of the degree. The cost (and difficulty) will vary,
| depending on the institution you select. You pay for the
| assessment, regardless of the result. The institution's
| motivation is to ensure that its graduates actually meet the
| degree criteria. If it issues degrees for sub-par applicants, its
| degrees become worth less (and ultimately, worthless), and fewer
| people will bother to acquire one.
|
| Educational institutions can then be separate. They can be exam-
| prep, cramming specialists with experience in getting students
| past a particular degree-granting institution's assessment, or
| they can be a genuine, broad-based, learning facility that
| students can attend to learn whatever they want, for however long
| they want, subject to continuing to pay for that tuition.
|
| If you want to teach yourself off YouTube, go ahead, and then
| test for the degree. If you want to be a well-rounded, educated
| person, maybe spend some time at a learning facility.
| redact207 wrote:
| I've been hiring SEs here in Australia for a few years, and
| finding decent graduates is hard.
|
| Covid made this worse by pushing more people through bootcamps
| who did it for the tech salary rather than genuine interest,
| which just added to the noise.
|
| The thing is that good developers could be anywhere. I've had
| great hires come through good unis with fantastic grades, as well
| as some who transitioned from a different industry and did a
| bootcamp.
|
| Unis for a lot of industries are losing their relevance. Here in
| Australia they'll continue to be subsidised by internationals who
| get favourable visa conditions upon graduation that can be worked
| into a family immigration plan, but for the rest of us it's just
| a lot of unnecessary debt.
| finikytou wrote:
| what is the pay you offering? in most markets it is the number
| one problem of people finding it hard to hire. they pay bad.
| nfw2 wrote:
| "Their profits come from helping students to cheat and I would be
| amazed if they don't know this."
|
| I worked briefly at Chegg and the only viewpoint I heard
| expressed, from either management or regular employees, was that
| the company was enhancing education, not hurting it. If anyone
| acknowledged that students were using the platform to cheat, the
| fact was framed as an unfortunate edge case, not the norm. It
| definitely felt to me like a bit of a "drink-the-koolaid" company
| culture.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| According to DFAT, education is Australia's biggest services
| export category - ahead of tourism1, and contributing more than
| $37B to the Australian economy2 (2019). Although tertiary
| education here is not free to residents, domestic students
| receive significant subsidies relative to international students.
|
| A lot of my friends here in Australia are uncomfortable with the
| potential effects of this on domestic education outcomes, and
| certainly allowing certain students to cheat is going to reduce
| the value of a degree to those who are genuinely trying to
| bootstrap their career.
|
| 1 https://www.dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/trade-investme...
|
| 2 https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/11/australias-37-6b-in...
| euos wrote:
| I worked for a company when I was in college (Ukraine) that would
| send me to pass in-person exams instead of other students. Money
| was good and I needed them. There was also a risk of being caught
| (though I did not really risk anything, just my employer would
| have to bribe the professor or someone higher up)
|
| Since then I strongly believe tests in the college are pointless.
| Doctors and such should have a strict licensing exam outside.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| Good universities still take pen-and-paper exams even for
| physics, programming, math. No electronics allowed. 3 hours. No
| multiple choice.
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