the application of intelligent context-aware systems to the detection of online student cheating -...

@DrLancaster slideshare.net/ThomasLancaster 1ThomasLancaster.co.uk

The Application Of Intelligent Context-Aware Systems To The

Detection Of Online Student Cheating

Thomas LancasterBirmingham City University

ICAS 2013


Does Cheating Matter?


Students Are Cheating!

There are lots of statistics to support this statement

e.g. 60.8% of college students admitted cheating30,000 respondentscheating on assignments and tests

and16.5% of these college students didn’t regret cheating

http://oedb.org/library/features/8-astonishing-stats-on-academic-cheating


Cheating Leads To…

Poor reputation of the universityStudents are not able to complete the job they were

assigned toPoor reputation of the Computing industryDisadvantageous to honest students who are putting

the time and effort inTheir results may look worse than their cheating peers


We Need To Be Addressing Cheating

As a community of educational professionals, ensuring academic integrity needs to be at the forefront of everything we doThere are opportunities for us to Intelligent Context-Aware Systems to both prevent and detect student cheating


Why I’m Interested In Further Addressing Cheating…

Thomas LancasterSenior Lecturer in Computing at Birmingham City University, UKProgram Leader BSc Computer SciencePhD “Effective and Efficient Plagiarism Detection”Originator of research into “contract cheating” (with Robert Clarke)


The Traditional Type Of Student Cheating


The Most Discussed Examples…

Student CollusionStudents work together to complete a solution to a programming taskStudent PlagiarismStudent submits a report using sections of text taken from online web sites


Plagiarism Is Detectable

TurnItIn widely used within education to find text in common with web sites and a massive database.


Collusion Is Detectable

JPlag (http://www.jplag.de) used to find clusters (groups) of students who have submitted program source code solutions which are structural and syntactically similar


Computing Academics Have Plagiarism Solved?

Many algorithms to look for plagiarism and collusion have been developed and testedThere are a lot of software solutions out there for educational useSystems like TurnItIn “win out” due to the benefits of a

massive database of previous work


Anti-Plagiarism Systems Make Limited Use Of Context

Copy of student work (in electronic format)Work submitted by other students in current cohortWork submitted by other students in previous cohorts/at other universitiesDatabase of web sites/journal papers/lecture notes


Three More Problems That Could Perhaps Utilise Context


The Most Blatant Cheating Is Easy To Detect

but…

Here are three more challenges for discussion(1) Essay Spinning(2) Social Media Cheating Groups(3) Contract Cheating Using Auction Sites(the printed paper discusses these in more detail and proposes further challenges)


(1) Essay Spinning


Essay Spinning - English

http://translate.google.com


Essay Spinning - Danish


Essay Spinning - Slovenian


Essay Spinning – English (again)


English to English Is Quite Different

Within the Computing field, this means that students are receiving degrees when they cannot sufficiently program. Hence, when these students take a job within the Computing industry, they will be unable to deliver source code to the standard that their employer expects. Although such students are not likely to last long in these jobs, this lack of ability reflects badly on the university. This means that other students from that institution will struggle to get jobs. Further, with the interconnected world facilitated by social media, other companies are likely to also know about the bad quality of the students obtaining similar degrees.

In the computer field means that students get degrees, they can not properly program. Therefore, when these students take a job in the computer industry will be able to provide the source code to the standard that their employer expects. Though these students are not likely to last long in this business, this failure reflects poorly on the university. This means that other students from these institutions are struggling to get a job. Continue with the interconnected world of social media facilitated another company, you probably know about the low quality of the students have similar degrees.


This Is A Mild Example…

Poor quality English can be improved using tutorial support (or may be acceptable for international speakers)Can we use context to detect the multi-lingual version of this translation?Suggestion – to extend the anti-plagiarism databases to automatically compare against translation – using the known languages of the student as context


(2) Social Media Cheating Groups


Private Information Sharing

“The superintendent for the West Islip School District said 12 students used Facebook to cheat on their biology homework and exam.

‘You can quickly, you know, snap a picture of your homework and post it’He also said the Facebook page was taken down.”

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/05/24/west-islip-students-accused-of-using-facebook-to-cheat


Contextual Solutions

Require students to provide access to all their social media accounts – then use traditional anti-plagiarism monitoring and algorithms?Use time and location cues to provide evidence of social media cheating?


(3) Contract Cheating Using Auction Sites


Buying Original Work

“This assignment is to create a Java program that inputs loan amount, annual interest rate and loan term and outputs the loan payment information. Attached is the output screen that it needs to look like when complete. The official assignment requirements will be forwarded to the winner of the contract which includes all the details and formats to be used. ”

http://www.freelancer.com/projects/Java/Hire-someone-Java-homework.html


Contract Cheating

Contract cheating occurs when a student has original work produced for them, which they then submit for academic credit

This will not be detected by TurnItIn or JPlag


Using Contextual Intelligence?

Need to automatically scan auction web sites, such as Freelancer and gather information (evidence)The contextual challenge is attribution (which student?

which university?)

Can stylometrics (writing style analysis) be used to identify when work is written out of context?


Recommendations


Need To Innovate

Getting ahead of students in the cheating game is an “arms race”If the students put the same amount of effort into their

work, they would all end up with first class degrees!Context is an underutilised component of cheating

detectionWe need to improve our use of intelligent systems to do

thisThis paper provides an early contribution to that discussion


For More Information

Thomas Lancaster:http://[email protected]

Slides Available At:http://slideshare.net/ThomasLancasterVideo Discussion Available At:http://youtube.com/DrThomasLancaster

http://thomaslancaster.co.uk/

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.slideshare.net/ThomasLancaster

http://www.slideshare.net/ThomasLancaster

http://youtube.com/DrThomasLancaster

http://youtube.com/DrThomasLancaster


Discussion

What are the biggest problems in student cheating?

How can Intelligent Context-Aware Systems aid academics in preventing and detecting those types of cheating?

the application of intelligent context-aware systems to the detection of online student cheating -...

Education

drlancaster slideshare

university students

contract cheating

cheating leads

honest students

blatant cheating

cheating peers

clusters groups of students