Providing Camera-Ready Copy

[mmm4444bot]

Ya gotta show some effort here.

Soroban provides hitler didi with camera-ready copy, so we should not expect much effort from hitler didi.

If you cannot find an example for your original problem you are just not trying hard enough!

Rhetorical: Why should hitler didi try any harder than simply posting exercises and waiting for camera-ready copy?

 

[JeffM]

When hitler didi is provided with camera-ready copy, we should not expect much effort from hitler didi.

I have just received a private message asking for help from a student who fears that his instructor will penalize him for using this site. I doubt that fear is realistic if the asking student merely receives assistance in finding the answer himself. It may be a legitimate fear if answers are provided. (Of course, I doubt many teachers prowl the Internet looking for students getting answers, but students may be reluctant to take the chance.)

 

[mmm4444bot]

I have just received a private message asking for help from a student who fears that his instructor will penalize him for using this site.

If such students do not possess intelligence sufficient to prevent them from registering here using both their real first and last names, then they deserve what they get!

 

[JeffM]

If such students do not possess intelligence sufficient to prevent them from registering here using both their real first and last names, then they deserve what they get!

If we do what we say we are doing, there is no reason in the world why a student should not feel free to be as open about his or her identity as seems sensible. I cannot agree that what we do can be done only under the cloak of anonymity.

 

[pka]

I have just received a private message asking for help from a student who fears that his instructor will penalize him for using this site. I doubt that fear is realistic if the asking student merely receives assistance in finding the answer himself. It may be a legitimate fear if answers are provided. (Of course, I doubt many teachers prowl the Internet looking for students getting answers, but students may be reluctant to take the chance.)

Have you heard of a website "TURN-IT-IN" or some such name. I know several professors who use it all the time. One can summit a student's work to that site and get back a report as to the % of the paper came from web-sources. The company BlackBoard has a form of it builtin. I also know that now at the boarding-school my daughter attended (years ago), using a site like this one is grounds for expulsion.

 

[mmm4444bot]

I moved the posts above from their original location on the Arithmetic board. This is why the quotation pointers lead back to this thread.

 

[mmm4444bot]

If we do what we say we are doing, there is no reason in the world why a student should not feel free to be as open about his or her identity as seems sensible. I cannot agree that what we do can be done only under the cloak of anonymity.

Point 1: Not all of us do "what we say we are doing".

Point 2: Students who are explicitly restricted by their instructor from seeking outside help should not be here, so I cannot agree with your "no reason in the world" above.

 

[JeffM]

Have you heard of a website "TURN-IT-IN" or some such name. I know several professors who use it all the time. One can summit a student's work to that site and get back a report as to the % of the paper came from web-sources. The company BlackBoard has a form of it builtin. I also know that now at the boarding-school my daughter attended (years ago), using a site like this one is grounds for expulsion.

No. I never heard of it, but it sounds like a reasonable way to prevent plagiarism in papers. I would, however, be suspicious of any claim saying software could determine whether answers to most homework problems in math were plagiarized: there usually is only one correct answer so one should expect a high correlation in correct answers. Correlation does not demonstrate causation.

Moreover, I find it absurd that using freemathhelp is grounds for expulsion. I would understand the rule if most tutors here just handed out answers, but most tutors do not. A private school may set whatever rules it likes, but applying that rule to freemathhelp strikes me as impeding the acquisition of knowledge. Homework is for practice; exams show what a student has learned. Does that school also expel students for asking their friends or parents questions?

 

[mmm4444bot]

I am considering polling all of the regular contributors as to their desires regarding the posting of camera-ready copy. The result of such discussion may lead to some regular(s) being banned from the boards for a "time out".

I've asked or suggested the following question on these boards so many times: For those who desire to type-up a bunch of fancy LaTex formatting and provide complete step-by-step camera-ready copy, what personal issues of the author prevent such posts from illustrating a SIMILAR EXAMPLE, instead?

I just don't get it. :-?

 

[JeffM]

Point 1: Not all of us do "what we say we are doing".

Which was exactly my point in my first post. Giving out answers provides a legitimate reason for teachers to object to this site and so a legitimate reason for students to fear using it.

Point 2: Students who are explicitly restricted by their instructor from seeking outside help should not be here, so I cannot agree with your "no reason" above.

I am not sure that I find legitimate any restriction imposed on learning, and I certainly do not feel bound by any such restriction. Obviously, a student who has received such an instruction would be sensible to disguise his or her identity. I did say disclosure "as seems sensible."

 

[mmm4444bot]

Have you heard of a website "TURN-IT-IN" or some such name. I know several professors who use it all the time. One can summit a student's work to that site and get back a report as to the % of the paper came from web-sources. The company BlackBoard has a form of it builtin. I also know that now at the boarding-school my daughter attended (years ago), using a site like this one is grounds for expulsion.

Oh, great. Soroban's continued academic dishonesty now puts our boards at risk of placement on blacklists? Is this the way of our future?

 

[mmm4444bot]

I am not sure that I find legitimate any restriction imposed on learning, and I certainly do not feel bound by any such restriction.

If you were to seriously research issues on academic dishonesty (in the USA), I believe that you would modify your opinion above.

While I cannot agree with such blanket views, I certainly do not feel bound to verify (or even consider, in most cases) whether any particular post is cheating. I just have no time for that, unless a particular poster gives me a reason to find the time.

I already devote sufficient hours each week toward dealing with lots of other crap on these boards.

 

[JeffM]

If you were to seriously research issues on academic dishonesty (in the USA), I believe that you would modify your opinion above.

While I cannot agree with such blanket views, I certainly do not feel bound to verify (or even consider, in most cases) whether any particular post is cheating. I just have no time for that, unless a particular poster gives me a reason to find the time.

I already devote sufficient hours each week toward dealing with lots of other crap on these boards.

I am sorry that you think I am trivial and write "crap." I am not and have not been discussing academic dishonesty. I am discussing students, mostly in high school and early in college, who are having trouble with their homework. They are not taking a test, writing academic papers in mathematics, publishing in scholarly journals, etc. The issue of academic dishonesty does not arise. If you truly believe that this site is facilitating academic dishonesty and that therefore students must hide the fact that they use the site, why do you support it?

A teacher who says that a student may not use a source of help for learning a topic is restricting the student's ability to learn. I understand the concept that a student who gets help on homework is engaging in fraud because the work is not exclusively the student's own. I simply do not agree that that any restriction on learning is valid. I have heard nothing yet to change my mind.

 

[mmm4444bot]

Please do not put words into my mouth. :-?

 

[pka]

Moreover, I find it absurd that using freemathhelp is grounds for expulsion.

Have you ever been part of a school that enforces a strict honor system? "I will neither give nor receive unauthorized help on graded assignments." Breaking the honor code is grounds.

 

[JeffM]

Have you ever been part of a school that enforces a strict honor system? "I will neither give nor receive unauthorized help on graded assignments." Breaking the honor code is grounds.

Yes, three.

I also know that now at the boarding-school my daughter attended (years ago), using a site like this one is grounds for expulsion.

No mention whatsoever of graded assignments.

 

[Mrspi]

I used to "stress out" regularly over the posted "camera ready answers" that appear regularaly from ONE of our volunteers. Now, I just skip over those responses completely; it is much better for my blood pressure. In addition, those responses (which I'm sure print out beautifully for students to hand in) do not show up in a readable fashion on my computer screen.

It would be too bad, indeed, of the practice of providing answers rather than providing INSTRUCTION results in any kind of blacklisting of what I feel is an extremely useful site.

J. Waldron

 

[daon2]

If a student is determined to cheat, they'll more often than not find a way, regardless of the policies on one particular website. Do I agree with going others' work for them? No, certainly not. I recently turned down a so-so friend of mine who wanted a little more "help" than I could honestly give and still feel good about it (of course this person had no desire to actually learn, which bothered me). Is it always a bad thing to provide complete solutions? Probably not. But as was already mentioned, there's no harm in doing a similar problem -- most of the time.

I wouldn't worry about a blacklist. If teachers know their students are coming here then they have the ability to monitor which problems get asked about and can adjust their learning plans accordingly (even in a manner which could expose that student).