Interesting read about the braindumps of the academic world.

I thought I would share this article with everybody here since it's somewhat of the brain **** in the academic world in a way. As I got into reading it, I expected a bit of anger to come of it as an individual who worked their way through my bachelor's degree legitimately while witnessing others blatantly cheating. I didn't expect to be as shocked as I was at some parts of the article, though I suppose that should come at no surprise given how it seems there is no shortage of people with money willing to pay their way through things without putting in work.

Anyways, here it is... might make you question exactly how many of the "professionals" out there you might run into in various facets of your life who worked through school this way.

The Shadow Scholar - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Comments

mikedisd2

Haven't read the whole thing yet, but real interesting read so far.

I heard on the news just yesterday about high school students outsourcing their home work for as little as $2. Writers in China and India bid for the assignments. It's all way too easy and can't be detected by the plagarism software that the teachers use.

Forsaken_GA

folks hiring folks to write their papers is nothing new. I, uh, may have aided and abetted an academic fraud or two in my time before I actually learned about this thing called integrity. The most egregious offense was when I helped a girl pass C programming (this was post integrity, but she was cute and had considerable assets, what was I going to do? I'm a weak, weak man). it was actually kind of fun writing my own code nice and tight, and then writing code for her to submit that was totally different than mine, had a number of inefficiencies, but still worked.

I'll bet the internet does make it a bit easier to get away with though.

If folks want to **** themselves out of their future, let 'em. Sooner or later, Darwin will be applicable

msteinhilber

Yea I was aware of such practices so I wasn't so much to that, but it was a bit of an eye opener the sorts of degree's the individual has contributed towards and even so much as writing a Master's thesis in the quantity they claim to have.

mikedisd2

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

folks hiring folks to write their papers is nothing new. I, uh, may have aided and abetted an academic fraud or two in my time before I actually learned about this thing called integrity. The most egregious offense was when I helped a girl pass C programming (this was post integrity, but she was cute and had considerable assets, what was I going to do? I'm a weak, weak man). it was actually kind of fun writing my own code nice and tight, and then writing code for her to submit that was totally different than mine, had a number of inefficiencies, but still worked.

I must confess, in grade 8 I didn't read To Kill A Mockingbird; I copied my book assignment from this girl I fancied.

Cheers to the OP, this was one of the more interesting articles I've read in a while.

Revenue

Thanks for the link. Very interesting read

apena7

That was an interesting read...

I am neither shocked nor disgusted when I read stories like these. I know that people will **** however they can in order to fulfill some short-term gain, but what happens tomorrow? I actually pity some of those people since they are the true suckers and will never realize their potential. They will have to rely on others to carry them through life and will pay a pretty price for it.

Oh well, once the cheaters are found out, that means less competition for me

billyr

Interesting reading.

I have a friend in the U.K studying for a degree at present. I was actually discussing plagiarism using resources on the net a few days back. He informed me that anti plagiarism software is in use and before he submits a paper he has to run it through the software.
I was aware that such a system existed but was not aware that you can actually change your paper as many times as you want and resubmitted it back through the software until it clears, seems a bit pointless in having it in the first place.

za3bour

mikedisd2 wrote: »

Haven't read the whole thing yet, but real interesting read so far.

I heard on the news just yesterday about high school students outsourcing their home work for as little as $2. Writers in China and India bid for the assignments. It's all way too easy and can't be detected by the plagarism software that the teachers use.

Outsource someone to write your homework at high school

: man that's just ugly and weird. Thanks for the article it's really a good read.

hypnotoad

Why doesn't Cisco just make their exams longer and randomize from a larger pool of questions? There has to be a limit to the utility of memorizing a bunch of answers.

msteinhilber

hypnotoad wrote: »

Why doesn't Cisco just make their exams longer and randomize from a larger pool of questions? There has to be a limit to the utility of memorizing a bunch of answers.

There was another thread, about Prometric if I remember correctly, regarding no talking to oneself or reading aloud being allowed. Seems people who sell the brain **** have no issue sending people in numerous times as new exams roll out to get as much of a sample of questions as possible.

From a strictly business sense, it doesn't seem like a bad decision. The costs of sending a few people to take the exam a half dozen or dozen times or more is probably less than some of these places will make by selling the material. I think with a lot of the non lab based exams, it's going to be pretty difficult to really do a good enough job at reducing the problem of brain **** without causing the legitimate crowd of people sitting the exams to complain about procedures to register for and take the exam.

Forsaken_GA

test centers make hardly anything from cert exams. Most of them also ofer training for the material you're going to certify on, and that's where they make their bank. So if I got chummy with an administrator and offered him some cash to set me up with an exam that I could take screen **** of the test questions a few times, sooner or later, someone's going to take me up on that offer. The exam providers don't do enough to police bad test centers, nor do they offer enough incentive that most of them will police themselves

thomAZ

WOW, I know cheating was common but to practically go through a graduate program without doing any of the work is just appalling. They should have a "to catch a predator" type show at a fake essay writing agency to get these people out in the open.

Qord

thomAZ wrote: »

WOW, I know cheating was common but to practically go through a graduate program without doing any of the work is just appalling. They should have a "to catch a predator" type show at a fake essay writing agency to get these people out in the open.

No worries....someday one of those clients will be famous. It's only a matter of time until the bribes start going public.