[bsder]

> Here's the easiest solution: stop grading homework

Because it's not that simple. These are INTRO classes.

For many students, an intro CS class may be the first class they have encountered in their lives in which they finally have to work.

So, part of the job of a teacher is to teach the class material but also to teach good studying habits. Without grading homework, the first real feedback that a student is in trouble will come on a midterm when they fail--the feedback is WAY too late at that point.

That having been said--your professor isn't as stupid as you think he is. Plagiarism that fools the professor is as much work as just doing the assignment.

And professors have lots of ways of dealing with plagiarists far short of disciplinary proceedings. For example, partial credit on exams is quite subjective, and plagiarists tend to lose the "coin flip" if the professor is on the fence.

The problem I have is simply that there are quite a few professors who simply don't care. They make it far too easy to cheat--reusing a previous year's project or exam, for example, is a no-no.

[zrobotics]

I think that there is a solution that is being overlooked, which worked pretty well in my intro class. The professor explained that he would be using plagarism software and wouldn't be accepting excuses. He also explained that he expected to see comments explaining nearly everything, and provided a style guide. While this is training a bad coding practice (who want's to read code that has that many unnecessary comments?), I don't see any way around it for an intro course, since it's really hard to avoid reusing assignments. There aren't that many ways to code 'hello world', but if you make it clear that code must be thoroughly commented then it will drastically reduce false positives. Doesn't stop people copying wholesale from stackexchange, but w/ that level of commenting required I don't think students are really learning less. And this isn't required for higher-level courses, since by that point the assignments are complex enough that accidental plagiarism is extremely unlikely.

[jkmcf]

Not sure if you missed it, or I'm misunderstanding you, but he wrote:

> Give them homework and "grade it" to give them feedback

which addresses your main point.

[dpark]

It doesn't address the point. Homework that doesn't count won't get done, so won't provide feedback.

[bsder]

Exactly. I have tried "Voluntary Homework" with even upper level classes--it doesn't work.

I generally put homework at about 5% of grade. You can avoid doing it and still get the grade you want, but it's a bit of an obstacle. And most decent students will do the homework anyhow.

Intro classes don't get that option. I put it at about 25% of the grade.