Article: If you want to prevent students from cheating, make them write essays that are unique to your specific class. A prompt that compares readings or specific content from your class will produce more unique essays than a general prompt. These essay prompts should be changed when teaching new classes. Students may be tempted to plagiarize if students they know have written on the prompts you are giving. If you don't want your students working on essays together, you need to make that clear before the assignment is even given. Some students will work together effectively, which can enhance the learning process. However, it can be a problem if one student just copies another student's essay. Decide whether you want students to work independently and then let them know, so that they cannot claim ignorance of your policy. You can always state that you are OK with students working together, but what they turn in must be their own work. This allows them to work together but it also requires them to do some independent work as well. Since many students are very technologically savvy, you can use that knowledge to your benefit. Have students turn in assignments through an online software program that checks it for plagiarism, such as Turnitin or PlagScan. Most universities have this type of program built into the websites that they use for students. If your school doesn't have this type of program available, discuss getting access to one with your supervisor. There tend to be more cases of cheating in the computer science department than other departments at many universities, simply because they have great resources for automated cheat checking. Students should only require roughly one week to request a regrade after work is returned. Make the deadline the same for everybody, regardless of whether they picked the assignment or exam up before your set deadline. This way, once the class ends, you are not pressured to review a ton of assignments that were returned months ago. Students, especially those near the course grade boundaries, may want to make attempts to seek extra points to raise their course grades at the end of the term.
What is a summary of what this article is about?
Create unique essay prompts. Make your expectations clear. Use software that checks for plagiarism. Make regrade request deadlines soon after the assignment was returned.