[pwinnski]

The idea that an honor code is enough is belied by the fact that software like this catches cheaters, no?

I mean, we're obviously upset about false positives, and we should be. But I'm presuming that some people are caught who were cheating, and without the software they would have cheated and not been caught.

We can suggest that with an honor code in place, maybe some of those cheating students would have not cheated, because... I mean, if they were willing to cheat with software in place, I'm not sure why would have been deterred by an honor code.

I think in about 98-99% of cases, people who claim an honor code prevents cheating are deluding themselves. Yeah, if you don't have any way of catching cheaters, then you can pretend you have a 0% cheating rate. But it's pretend.

P.S. I'm not speaking for my employer at all.

[analog31]

It's not certain that the software catches cheaters. It could be security theater. Even the false positives could just be to make people nervous.

Where would they get reliable training data?

There's a pile of money to be spent on this stuff, and virtually zero accountability. What's that a recipe for?

[blahedo]

I have taught at multiple honor-code institutions (and still do). It does not prevent cheating. However, it shifts focus: I can go about my teaching life starting from an assumption that students are not cheaters—and I'm personally convinced that most aren't.

The flipside is that when you do catch a cheating case, you completely throw the book at them. It's legitimately easier to cheat under an honor system, if that's what you're wanting to do... so my assumption is that if we catch you at it, it's likely part of a pattern, and if we catch you multiple times the pattern is irreformable. It is not uncommon at honor-code institutions to expel students on the second offence (sometimes even on the first).

I do think that cheating is less prevalent at my institution (and my previous institution) than it is in the larger university population.