Opportunist Cheating and Its Cure Neil Jesperson wmte a n interesting note that draws attention to the hi-tech wizardry now available to todays generation of cheats in the p lass mom.^ Fortunately, the initial cost, and subsequent toll charges associated with vibrating paging devices probably precludes their misuse on a wide-scale. Many cheats, who are less amuent or technically aware, engage in more classical types of miscreant activity, and there is at least one American "how to" book on the market (we purposely refrain from mentioning its title). In order to discourage those individuals that cheat in an opportunist manner (that is to say, who take a peek at their neighbar's work) we disseminate several different examination papers to our classes, that differ only in the sets of parameters included in the problems. Other teachers use color coded papers that aid in the graders identification of the same set of problems, but this is also an aid to the potential cheat. Using the same color paper, subtle changes to the data supplied would require an offender to spend extra time checking whether his data matches that of his neighhor. Giving our students advance notice of this strategy we have, to all intents and purposes, eliminated this type of cheating from our classrwms.
Literature Cited 1. Jerperson, N.J. C h .Educ, 1993,70,11
John Tarnine and Michael N. Quigley Mellon Hall of Science Duquesne University Pittsburgh, PA 15282
Volume 70 Number 10 October 1993
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