Some computer science students across the country have been taking advantage of new Web sites offering students the opportunity to outsource their homework to computer programmers worldwide.
The Web site, rentacoder.com, functions like other auction Web sites, where students can put their homework assignments up for bidding alongside businesses and others in need of computer programming code. It can connect people who need programs to programmers in places like India and China without having to pay an outsourcing company, computer science Prof. Aaron Bloomfield said.
Computer science students across the country already have started to utilize the service to avoid doing their school work, an issue highlighted by a Jan. 18 Wall Street Journal article.
"This is a homework I did not have time to study for. I have a lot of knowledge in programming but I simply was pressed for time, that's where I need your guy's help," wrote one user identified as "LoverOfNightLife."
There is some concern among computer science professors that this will be a particularly difficult form of cheating to detect. Some University professors have responded to the threat by opening accounts at the site in order to check if homework assignments from their classes have been posted, Bloomfield said.
"If worse comes to worse, I can always write a bit of code to search the site for my assignments," he added.
There are ways of organizing the class syllabus to minimize the benefits that might be accrued by using a site like rentacoder.com, Bloomfield said. Examples include reducing the weight of homework assignments and running systems checks on turned-in assignments. Many classes already weigh homework scores much lower than tests and quizzes despite the fact that most of the labor done by students is in the form of homework.
At this point cheating in the Engineering School is not a serious issue, Bloomfield said.
"Generally, I go into each semester trusting all of my students, and by and large my assumption is true, but there have been a few students that make precautions against cheating necessary, especially in lower-level required classes," Bloomfield said.
Fourth-year Engineering student Maggie Ware-Smith said she feels that cheating is not prevalent among her classmates.
"The E-School is a lot of work, but we develop camaraderie because we are all going through the same thing, and if someone decided to take the easy way out it, would be a huge insult to their classmates," Ware-Smith said, adding that cheaters compromise the integrity of their degree by failing to study the material.
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