acm - an acm publication

2010 - October

  • Cheating in Computer Science

    Many computer science teachers are very concerned about students cheating in their courses. Surveys report that almost three-quarters of high school students admit to cheating within the past year. John Barrie, founder of the plagiarism-detecting Web site Turnitin.com, says that about a third of the papers submitted to the site have significant levels of plagiarism. Many people say that the Internet has made cheating easier and harder to detect and they wonder if the moral fabric of our youth is fraying. In the trenchant analysis below, Bill Murray approaches the teaching-learning system as a game in which students, teachers, and others play various roles. He wonders whether the game itself encourages cheating, and suggests that teachers could restructure the game so that cheating is less rewarding and less likely. --Peter J. Denning

  • The New Ubiquity
    Ubiquity's new site will launch this month, marking a new editorial direction. Ubiquity is now a peer-reviewed online publication of ACM dedicated to the future of computing and the people who are creating it.