The acts of cheating that typically appear on this section of yahoo involve requesting answers to specific tests (I’ve noticed this a lot with Penn Foster). This violates community guidelines in two ways:

1. The askers are using the forum for solicitation; in this case they are soliciting test answers

2. Those who respond by offering to transfer the answers are violating copyright laws. Test answers like all written material are protected by copyright and are not transferable without the written permission of the copyright holder.

I have no problem with using the Web to research information, but I do have a problem when someone just lazily says, “Do this problem for me.”

I think Yahoo should eliminate the homework category altogether, and delete any such questions, but then I come from a time when you couldn’t even bring a simple calculator to school. Times at school, and the attitudes of modern parents, have changed for the worse, I’m afraid.

To Busymom, above, I must respectfully disagree with you when you say the only one getting cheated is the cheater. The other students get cheated as well as any other honest person, because they end up having to take up the slack somewhere down the line for the person who cheated, whether it’s in tutoring them to get them back up to speed, or cleaning up after them in professional life when they’ve done harm to a customer or in the workplace because they either tried to shortcut around the work (the same motivation for cheating in school) or because they caused a more serious problem because they didn’t have the requisite knowledge to do the job right to begin with.

After all, you wouldn’t want your doctor, your airline mechanic, or your lawyer to have cheated their way through school, would you? Such an attitude can (and has) resulted in death for innocent patients, clients, travellers, etc.

Too much leniency when they’re young leads to a lack of discipline when they’re adults.

It is indeed a sad commentary on the youth of today in general that so many students not only have absolutely no problem asking people to help them cheat, they really think they have a right to.

I have had “students” (and I use that term lightly since one actually has to be learning something to earn the right to be called a student) contact me to say silly things like

“it’s only an elective” “I’m so close to being finished, I just want this to be over” “i’m not really wanting to be a (fill in the blank) so it shouldn’t matter if someone helps me.

And then I absolutely love this one “stop saying I’m cheating! All I want is someone to give me the answers so I can go do something else”

Is it just me?

As for guidelines, I would say “don’t number four” covers it: “don’t solicit others for ANY purpose.”

Also, there is a forum where you can post questions about guidelines, and I, for one, will be asking for a new “don’t”

PS, never thought of the copyright rule. good point.

“Where can I find Penn Foster Spanish elective answers?

I need help with mostly all the exams any help is appreciated”

or its like? How do you know this is a student and not a parent or teacher trying to grade a student’s work against the rubric?

Even if it is a student, the answer is: “Look in your book. They are open book exams.”

Someone once told me that lawyers go to law school not to learn what the law says, but to learn where to look up what the law says. And Sherlock Holmes made a point of not remembering information that he didn’t need for the case at hand.

Using Yahoo answers to “look up” something that should be in your textbook for an open book exam is silly (it makes about as much sense as looking in your Algebra textbook does), but it isn’t morally wrong. Finally, after hours of testimony in a libel case, where plaintiff Henry Ford was grilled on all the things he didn’t know (the defense was trying to prove he really was an “ignoramus”), Henry finally answered in exasperation, “I don’t know the answer to your question, but I have access to men that do. They work for me and will come running at the push of a button on my desk.” Ford knew what he needed to know, and knew how to get the answers to the rest.

Open book tests are designed to see if you are familiar enough with the material to find the answer, not to test whether you’ve memorized it.

Insifficient data to call this “blatantly cheating.” No foul.

Same for the people who ask someone to write essays for them.If they write an essay and ask for help with it, that’s a whole different thing, but don’t ask someone to do homework or provide answers to exam questions.

Should there be guidelines? Yes, but the students would find ways to get around the guidelines.

It is up to us to not answer such questions when we think it is used for that purpose.

Do keep in mind though that the only one getting cheated is the person who cheats.

Add.

When I say only the one who cheats get cheated; I mean they are short changing themselves in terms of their education.