[vash_stampy]

To me, the stance that this professor is taking is absurd. He's not helping anyone but himself giving up on efforts to prevent cheating.

I really thought he would have made a compelling argument to resolve this, but it seems more like he's become so frustrated with cheating that he's resigned himself from that aspect of education.

With that said, I do disagree with the stance that universities take on cheating. The system of punishment is too focused on catching cheaters and punishing them so harshly as scare others to never consider it. I think this prevents many students from being more creative or exploring their own ideas based on previous work.

I believe cheating is not something a student commits because of inability, cheating is a crime of laziness. Therefore, rather than trying to catch cheating, schools should just making cheating pointless. Papers and assigments should be completely open and encourage students to look at any previous work and allow them to include it in their own work simply with a citation.

To add, professors seem to focused on their students finding credible sources to cite rather than allowing students to form their own ideas. Credible ideas can be founded from less credible sources and that is what should really matter.

[xom]

As stated, the professor is preventing cheating by modifying the nature of the assignments.