This is perhaps not such a problem at private training institutions, but at most uni's cheating in assignments is becoming a real issue (and I have personally busted quite a few people this year).
I guess this post is really a warning for students: do something stupid like this
http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/BidRequests/ShowBidRequest.as…
and you are going to get caught, and it is likely to get you thrown out of uni if you do it more than once.
Also most uni's are using tools with huge databases of textbooks, thesis and journal papers that scan through written work submitted by students, and bring back the full texts of similar work. Automated plagiarism detectors.
Perhaps I could have put it better "it is becoming more of an issue" i.e. more people seem to be doing it, and more are getting caught.
From the uni's perspective letting these people through can really hurt an institutions reputation. Hence more and more effort is devoted to catching it before graduation and preliminary trials happen.
Letting through a graduate who doesn't know the difference between a pointer to an array and an array of pointers doesn't do anyone any good.
quote:Originally posted by rezn0r
Java doesn't have pointers. :P
I know this was a joke, but every damn procedural language has pointers, they just call them references, aliases or whatever.
Anyhoo - I suggest all students plagarise their work in handwritten form to counteract the databases. :) Seriously though while I agree it's a huge issue, there's plagiarism and then there's real life. I worry about these tools finding 'false positives' - especially given the reliance on them by overworked and underfunded lecturers.
I had 'a friend' that once decompiled an assembly language 'worked solution' then rearranged the code, labels and subroutines for an assignment; I also 'knew of' a cabal of students who divided up their group assignments for the entire semester. In my degree, when one multiple choice question in a mid-semester exam was worth 2% of 12 credit points, and forty-hours of assignment work for another lecturer was worth 2% of 8 credit points, the system really lost all credibility.
Students will always work together to solve problems, just like people do in the workplace. They will pay each other, or second / third / fourth / perennial students to do their work (or help to the point that it's virtually done anyway). They will keep last years assignments and there will be a black market in them. And all this means that if the same assignment is reused year-on-year, the odds of a positive hit for plagiarism increase. It also means the odds of a false positive increase. There's only so many ways to argue a point/solve a problem/describe an algorithm effectively.
In the workplace if you claim work that's not yours you are a pr*ck who's gunning for a firing. If you build on huge slabs of work that's not yours you're a professional who'll be promoted. If it's been solved before and you find the solution rather than rebuild it, you're a rarity.
And moony - all art is theft anyway. :)
Edit: That reads (apart from me looking more like a w*nker than normal) a bit like I'm condoning plagiarism, which is absolutely not the case. I'm a stickler for EULAs and details of license agreements in my professional life and assiduously note the source and check the license of anything I take off the web or any published reference material. I do, however, have a number of concerns about these sorts of databases, including students being required to grant IP rights to corporations that are profiting off their work without that being disclosed to them when they apply to the uni. But bigger, the ramifications of a false positive hit for plagiarism are huge for an honest person, and I fear the safeguards in the absence of compulsory student unionism.
I take your point about VSU mcdrewski (just to emphasise here: my job is dependent on my being a student atm- it's a teaching fellowship), but in general we are pretty kind in that we ask for explanations before taking action, and first definite offence is a warning. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression. It's the really blatant cases (like putting your assignment up for tender on rentacoder) that get really harsh penalties. Also there are normally teltale signs eg failing lab work and exams, but getting 90+ in an assignment. In that case we give the student an oral quiz about how their assignment was put together and works, and maybe ask them to modify it somehow.
In the case of written work run through a plagiarism detector, when it detects something it puts the student's work and the similar passage next to each other, and it's human judgement that decides.
Quite a while ago I had to deal with a student stupid enough to leave the following in submitted assignment code:
[code]
//Here you go. That will be $500. My bank account details follow:
//xxxxxxxx
//xxxxxxxx
//Thanks,
//xxxxxx
[/code]
They hadn't even looked at it.
The most evil kind of cheating I've come across is (also quite some time ago) a full fee paying international student offered me $2000 for 7 marks. He'd got 43. Give me a degree and make it a pass! [:(] Of course I didn't accept, but I felt dirty anyway. I didn't report him by name, but I told high ups about it, and one said "well, I guess that's what happens when things get a bit too commercial". Now I would throw the book at him.
Internation students are often under immense pressure from family, sometimes their government, and if they fail consistently, from the dept of immigration.
quote:Originally posted by mcdrewski
quote:Originally posted by rezn0r
Java doesn't have pointers. :P
I know this was a joke, but every damn procedural language has pointers, they just call them references, aliases or whatever.
Actually no they aren't the same.
What's a null reference? What's a null pointer?
That's right the first doesn't exist.
quote:Originally posted by Dragoon
Personally I think the automated checkers are complete BS. The triviality of Uni assignments means you'll get false positives.
What procedures do you have in place to deal with that? How can you *prove* someone is cheating, except in *very obvious* cases.
Plenty of the assignments are not so trivial, and they get less trivial the longer you stay. Some are trivial. Assignments get vetted i.e. someone is paid to do them before the students even see them, comments received, and changes made. If it can't be proved but it's highly suspect afaik the situation is explained to the student and no action taken.
With some of the really non-trivial assignments (eg big software engineering group projects) tutors are seeing work and updates every week, and at assessment time group members are quizzed on knowledge of how the project was put together and works.
It can hard to detect, there's no denying it, particularly with reasonably smart and devious students [:)], but if they're really smart they don't plagiarise- they have no need to try.
quote:
quote:
...every damn procedural language has pointers, they just call them references, aliases or whatever.
Actually no they aren't the same.
What's a null reference? What's a null pointer?
That's right the first doesn't exist.
We're going to get into a semantic argument here, which I hate because I'm an amateur [url="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=define%3A+etymology&btnG=Search"]etymologist[/url] as well as a bit of a [url="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=define%3A+pedant&btnG=Search"]pedant[/url] and I just can't stop myself when I think I'm right about a word/definition or description. So everyone can ignore this post (sorry for hijacking your thread lorien), but I just have to write it. sorry. [:P]
In C++, Dragoon is right, the term 'null reference' has no meaning. However there absolutely is a concept which can be described as 'null references'. For example, in Java, think about the following chunk of code.
[code]
Player p[];
p = new Player[10];
[/code]
Until each Player object in the array is instantiated, we have an array of references to uninstantiated Player objects. 'null references' for want of a better term.
In short, as soon as you have a way of describing one object by two different names, you have aliases, or references, or pointers etc. Dig deep enough in virtually any procedural language and you'll start to find traps,tricks and caveats that only make sense if you think in terms of pointers. The language might do everything in it's power to hide those tricks from you so you never try any form of *i++ malarky, but under the covers it's all the same thing (since at CPU level the computer can only think in terms of data or the address where that data is stored).
Yes the underlying implementation of references would indeed use pointers at some time, however consider:
*p = 10;
Some languages may have specific situations where you might call them something similar to null references but they can't be used like a null pointer (comparison wise can you use them in logical operations? maybe you can? I would imagine in Java that in your array situation arr[0] != arr[1] even though they are not initialised - likely it would throw a not initialised exception or something as it can't get the hash code of the objects). NB: Java isn't my strongest language.
The concept of a pointer is also different from the concept of a reference. Pointers are a location in memory, which can be used as a reference, but allow you to do a whole lot more (and shoot yourself in the foot in a myriad of additional ways). A reference is just that, a reference to an object that allows the compiler or interpreter to match up the code using it to the original object.
quote:Originally posted by lorien
quote:Originally posted by Dragoon
Personally I think the automated checkers are complete BS. The triviality of Uni assignments means you'll get false positives.
What procedures do you have in place to deal with that? How can you *prove* someone is cheating, except in *very obvious* cases.
Plenty of the assignments are not so trivial, and they get less trivial the longer you stay. Some are trivial. Assignments get vetted i.e. someone is paid to do them before the students even see them, comments received, and changes made. If it can't be proved but it's highly suspect afaik the situation is explained to the student and no action taken.
With some of the really non-trivial assignments (eg big software engineering group projects) tutors are seeing work and updates every week, and at assessment time group members are quizzed on knowledge of how the project was put together and works.
It can hard to detect, there's no denying it, particularly with reasonably smart and devious students [:)], but if they're really smart they don't plagiarise- they have no need to try.
Well when I went through the ANU, there would only be 1 assignment I would have characterised as non-trivial - a 6mth group project (even then its still pretty trivial). No need to plagarise there.
Every other assignment would not be more than a few hundred lines of code at best. Trivial. Some may be tricky due to the concepts or algorithms involved, but still trivial in size.
Did people cheat. Yep, they were lazy or couldn't do it and got their friends to help. Did some get "caught" through their "clever" detection programs. Yep. Did some of them get awarded marks anyway - Yep, because the lecturers couldn't "prove" when the students complained to the uni admin that the students *without a doubt* cheated. Did they get false positives. Yep.
Moral is, that as a student if you get accused of cheating - complain and get your results reviewed. More likely than not you'll get your marks.
Simple fact is Comp Sci teachers *hope* students will just take it and not complain.
quote:
Well when I went through the ANU, there would only be 1 assignment I would have characterised as non-trivial - a 6mth group project (even then its still pretty trivial). No need to plagarise there.
Every other assignment would not be more than a few hundred lines of code at best. Trivial. Some may be tricky due to the concepts or algorithms involved, but still trivial in size.
Did people cheat. Yep, they were lazy or couldn't do it and got their friends to help. Did some get "caught" through their "clever" detection programs. Yep. Did some of them get awarded marks anyway - Yep, because the lecturers couldn't "prove" when the students complained to the uni admin that the students *without a doubt* cheated. Did they get false positives. Yep.
Moral is, that as a student if you get accused of cheating - complain and get your results reviewed. More likely than not you'll get your marks.
Simple fact is Comp Sci teachers *hope* students will just take it and not complain.
Fair enough [:)] As you can see elsewhere on sumea students can be very good at complaining very loudly [:D] and things do slip though, as I've said above.
There are a lot of checks in place in case of false positives to begin with, and there are also plenty of ways to apeal. As there should be. I think you'll find the last thing most institutions want to do is produce pissed-off students and graduates.
What was the 1 assignment? I haven't done undergrad comp-sci, and so I only know the comp-sci assignments I see as part of work.
The 6 month group project software engineering subject I take in second semesters have been making galactic mapping simulators this year, where you pilot a super-light ship through a moving, persistent 3d galaxy to find new stars. They haven't had to do 3d graphics, though some have. It is being done for the Victorian Space Science Education Centre, and is tied in with the Gaia project of the Europen Space Agency (just google "gaia project"). VSSEC is a state govt funded oranisation to "promote science and mathematics education to Victorian students by exposing them to the exciting world of space science" http://www.vssec.org/index.html
Sure it's still a toy project, but it's a pretty hefty toy if you try to go for perfect marks, which people do.
I can say that some of the most full-on assignments of my life came from the Canberra School of Music, which is part of the ANU too. And they were in first year (I left to do a more specialised music tech course at La Trobe). Ancient history here... I was at the CSM in 1994, and I'd already spent 2 years at another music school studying guitar instead of composition.
My original point in this thread was "don't cheat". There are a bunch of reasons for not doing it, and all the reasons to do it mark you as being corrupt, lazy and/or stupid.
That assignment on rentacoder went around the La Trobe comp-sci academic staff mailing list. It was actually a joke played by another staff member, and it isn't real. Though I didn't know that when I made this thread, and La Trobe's (and many, many other institution's) assignments have found there way onto that and similar sites.
We seem to find around 1 like this each year.
quote:Originally posted by lorien
Letting through completely incompetent graduates does tend to piss-off the good ones quite a bit too.
Indeed :P Cheapens the nature of the entire course really.
I don't like spending thousands of dollars to work at an accreditation, only to have someone who was never there receive the same xeroxed diploma.
I like it when training institutions treat you like customers.
This exact topic with the exact same site just hit slashdot
quote:
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "'If U.S. companies can go online to outsource their programming, why can't U.S. computer students outsource their homework--which, after all, often involves writing sample programs?' Wall Street Journal colummnist Lee Gomes asks. 'Scruples aside, no reason at all. Search for "homework" in the data base of Rent A Coder projects, and you get 1,000 hits. (An impressive number, but still a tiny fraction of all computer students, the vast majority of whom are no doubt an honest and hardworking lot.)' Some of the Rent a Coder users appear to be outsourcing their way through school, at low costs--probably less than $100 per assignment. The posting are, of course, anonymous, but Gomes traces one to a student at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where an instructor tells him that Rent a Coder contributed to a problem of plagiarism last semester."
I'll add that people may find some of Dragoon's comments in this thread have more meaning when you know he's been AIE Canberra staff.
quote:Originally posted by lorien
This exact topic with the exact same site just hit slashdot
quote:
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "'If U.S. companies can go online to outsource their programming, why can't U.S. computer students outsource their homework--which, after all, often involves writing sample programs?' Wall Street Journal colummnist Lee Gomes asks. 'Scruples aside, no reason at all. Search for "homework" in the data base of Rent A Coder projects, and you get 1,000 hits. (An impressive number, but still a tiny fraction of all computer students, the vast majority of whom are no doubt an honest and hardworking lot.)' Some of the Rent a Coder users appear to be outsourcing their way through school, at low costs--probably less than $100 per assignment. The posting are, of course, anonymous, but Gomes traces one to a student at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where an instructor tells him that Rent a Coder contributed to a problem of plagiarism last semester."
I'll add that people may find some of Dragoon's comments in this thread have more meaning when you know he's been AIE Canberra staff.
Once again a cryptic statement - what are you trying to say Lorien? What do I or the AIE have to do with Rent-A-Coder?
All I've said is that at Uni, its hard to know (and prove) whether someones work is their own (and if you accuse them they have many avenues of appeal in their favour). With vocational training its easy to know, but hard to fail them if they've turned up to classes. Just the way the system works.
Edit: If you care to read through this thread, you'll see my comments are in no way mentioned or directed at Rent-A-Coder, at any particular kind of training, just at automated assignment checkers. What does the AIE or vocational vs university training have to do with it?
In the other thread, if you care to read, my comments were solely about the differences between vocational and university training in general, not even specifically to the games industry, until you started trying to draw everything into a Lorien vs AIE discussion. Are you attempting to do so once again?
I, for one, would like to know where you get your deep seated dislike of the AIE from, and why you try to draw almost every discussion about industry education into an AIE is bad discussion; after all did they not help you get your current position? You always mention the AIE as if it, or anything associated with it is bad.
What companies did you apply for with your really good demo reel?
(I could enquire for you as to reasons they did not hire if you like)
quote:Originally posted by lorien
Not getting hired whilst having a really good demo reel was part of why I decided to do more study- and it took around 8 months for one of my programmer classmates with 1st class honours in software engineering and the AIE's dip comp game dev to get a games programming job.
Is there somewhere you have it online? I'll provide you with a critique if you like. Many students can't think objectively about their own work, and many don't know what games companies are looking for when they hire. There are also other reasons why someone won't be offered a job - eg. their personality doesn't match the team, someone with more targetted or appropriate skills applies, they are waiting on the publisher for confirmation on a project before getting back to people (this can take ages), they just aren't hiring (a lot of companies - not just games - do have advertisements up in case someone exceptional applies - they make a position for them).
quote:
Once again a cryptic statement - what are you trying to say Lorien? What do I or the AIE have to do with Rent-A-Coder?
Nothing at all. I feel your posts reflect something of where you worked is all.
I have no interest in conversations with you Dragoon, I have an extremely low opinion of you and you're one of the last people on earth I'd ask for a critique.
I also caught you lying through your teeth on sumea in another thread that was started by someone straight out of high school.
Obviously you don't know the very rude nickname we had for you in Canberra. It wasn't me who devised it.
quote:Originally posted by lorien
quote:
Once again a cryptic statement - what are you trying to say Lorien? What do I or the AIE have to do with Rent-A-Coder?
Nothing at all. I have no interest in conversations with you Dragoon, I have an extremely low opinion of you and you're one of the last people on earth I'd ask for a critique.
I also caught you lying through your teeth on sumea in another thread that was started by someone straight out of high school.
Obviously you don't know the very rude nickname we had for you in Canberra. It wasn't me who devised it.
Ah yes, you show your true colours regarding people you don't like again. Personal attacks. I really don't care what your opinion is of me... people here can make their own minds up. Really if it wasn't for some of the things you've been saying here over the months, I wouldn't have an account on Sumea at all :-P Lying through my teeth? good one! please tell (useless without relevant quotes) :-)
Why not put down your own reasons and opinions regarding the AIE and its founders for once. People can plainly see them in what you're saying. All I see you do is posture and quote other people... I have yet to hear why you dislike it/them so much?
Since you like bagging out you're classmates, should we go back to your dislike of Python? should we bring up mistakes you have made? given how you like to discuss your classmates failings? would you care to share your experience with Python while at the AIE with people here? Did your time at the AIE help you get your current job?
quote:Originally posted by Dragoon
Ah yes, you show your true colours regarding people you don't like again. Personal attacks. I really don't care what your opinion is of me... people here can make their own minds up. Really if it wasn't for some of the things you've been saying here over the months, I wouldn't have an account on Sumea at all :-P Lying through my teeth? good one! please tell (useless without relevant quotes) :-)
[:)]
both from http://sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3447&whichpage=3
Me:
quote:
I think it's dishonest to go giving advice to kids straight out of high school without telling them you are or have been a staff member at an institution. I've said where I study and work, and have done so plenty of times on sumea. You guys have been avoiding it like crazy is how it seems to me (Dragoon is/was AIE Canberra staff too).
Dragoon:
quote:
I don't work for the AIE. The only relationship I have with them is through giving guest industry lectures to their programming students.
Quite aside from the realtionship between MF and the AIE- a relationship which found some expression in legal documents- saying that the only relationship is as a guest lecturer is an outright lie imho.
As for personal attacks you were the one who started them http://sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=897&whichpage=2 by accusing me of spreading false information.
quote:
Why not put down your own reasons and opinions regarding the AIE and its founders for once. People can plainly see them in what you're saying. All I see you do is posture and quote other people... I have yet to hear why you dislike it/them so much?
Primarily because of my current job as acting head of games tech at La Trobe. You should have asked earlier [:)]
quote:
Since you like bagging out you're classmates, should we go back to your dislike of Python? should we bring up mistakes you have made? given how you like to discuss your classmates failings? would you care to share your experience with Python while at the AIE with people here? Did your time at the AIE help you get your current job?
I'm not bagging out ex-classmates (OK except 1). I don't dislike python at all, I think it's got some problems, but then so does every language under the sun. Guido is one hell of a guy imho. I didn't use python at all while at the AIE- where did you get that idea? I'd used python extensively 2 or 3 years earlier. I use programs written in python like scons most days still, just I choose other languages for my own programming.
Attending the AIE had nothing to do with my job, which is a teaching fellowship (awarded like a scholarship). The official title is "Associate Lecturer" FYI. How could having done a course without a programming teacher have helped? How I got the job/MSc candidature was by giving a seminar, using my old uni marks, with a portfolio that was made after leaving the AIE (not a single line of Hail code in it) and with references from old teachers at the ANU and La Trobe, along with AIE classmates with comp-sci honours degrees. I was even told point blank that a reference from any vocational training institution would be completely useless in applying for postgrad research (it's not for undergrad).
quote:Originally posted by lorien
quote:Originally posted by Dragoon
Ah yes, you show your true colours regarding people you don't like again. Personal attacks. I really don't care what your opinion is of me... people here can make their own minds up. Really if it wasn't for some of the things you've been saying here over the months, I wouldn't have an account on Sumea at all :-P Lying through my teeth? good one! please tell (useless without relevant quotes) :-)
[:)]
both from http://sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3447&whichpage=3
Me:
quote:
I think it's dishonest to go giving advice to kids straight out of high school without telling them you are or have been a staff member at an institution. I've said where I study and work, and have done so plenty of times on sumea. You guys have been avoiding it like crazy is how it seems to me (Dragoon is/was AIE Canberra staff too).
Dragoon:
quote:
I don't work for the AIE. The only relationship I have with them is through giving guest industry lectures to their programming students.
Quite aside from the realtionship between MF and the AIE- a relationship which found some expression in legal documents- saying that the only relationship is as a guest lecturer is an outright lie imho.
I think you misinterpreted what I said there. I don't work for AIE doesn't mean I never did. I disclosed I do guest lectures (one last year) and they contact me for them, and I am not obliged or paid to do them in any way.
quote:Originally posted by lorien
As for personal attacks you were the one who started them http://sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=897&whichpage=2 by accusing me of spreading false information.
quote:
Why not put down your own reasons and opinions regarding the AIE and its founders for once. People can plainly see them in what you're saying. All I see you do is posture and quote other people... I have yet to hear why you dislike it/them so much?
Primarily because of my current job as acting head of games tech at La Trobe. You should have asked earlier [:)]
I did say I might have been a bit hasty in my comment and apologised for it. So it is ethical to repeatedly bring up peoples points of views that coincide with your own regarding other institutions, as long as you don't present them as your own?
quote:Originally posted by lorien
quote:
Since you like bagging out you're classmates, should we go back to your dislike of Python? should we bring up mistakes you have made? given how you like to discuss your classmates failings? would you care to share your experience with Python while at the AIE with people here? Did your time at the AIE help you get your current job?
I'm not bagging out ex-classmates (OK except 1). I don't dislike python at all, I think it's got some problems, but then so does every language under the sun. Guido is one hell of a guy imho. I didn't use python at all while at the AIE- where did you get that idea? I'd used python extensively 2 or 3 years earlier. I use programs written in python like scons most days still, just I choose other languages for my own programming.
My memory maybe failing as to who, but I do recall being called to come down and fix up a students code because they had changed the Python headers (of all things?) and broken the compilation, blaming Python? Ruby was chosen in the end for Hail scripting I believe, so it wasn't long used.
quote:Originally posted by Dragoon
My memory maybe failing as to who, but I do recall being called to come down and fix up a students code because they had changed the Python headers (of all things?) and broken the compilation, blaming Python? Ruby was chosen in the end for Hail scripting I believe, so it wasn't long used.
I was trying to make some ruby bindings for parts of Jet for a while, and I didn't want to hack the Jet headers, so I tried hacking ruby to be able to deal with binding libraries with __fastcall conventions being default. None of us touched python at all. Entr0py did hack the Jet headers a little in the process of trying to bypass the entire rendering/mesh/animation sections of Jet while using it to open a window so we could still tell AIE management "we are using Jet" without lying, and you doing the Jet re-install and making it read only made us decide "stuff the management, Jet is history", which it was really anyway because it was only used to open a window. Ruby was chosen right from the start for Hail scripting, python was never even considered as you can see from a couple of my posts on the ruby mailing list in early 2002 like http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/38507?help-…
If the python headers were hacked it was your students, not any of us.
edit: I'll also add that Auran apologised to us profusely over the Jet hassles.
quote:Originally posted by Dragoon
So it is ethical to repeatedly bring up peoples points of views that coincide with your own regarding other institutions, as long as you don't present them as your own?
Depends on the context and the people concerened imho. In the case of Kipper much of the quote in question is largely about me so I have no problem with it. In the case of Bob he'd said "good on you" when he found out about freeplay 04. And as for CynicalFan [;)]
Edit: if you mean Chris Crawford that neat little essay (the education of a game designer) just made a lot of sense to me, and I have no problem with quoting him on sumea. It would be unethical not to have done so imho.
I say it's always been an issue.
There was a particular incident when I was studying where the same subject was repeated over two semesters. Apparently two students in the second semester were expelled because they just took the assignment work of a student from the first semester and presented as their own. Very lazy and very stupid.