Teaching Academic Honesty in CS50 - SIGCSE 2020
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- Опубліковано 21 вер 2024
- A talk for the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '20). Paper at cs50.ly/sigcse.... Slides at cs50.ly/sigcse.... #SIGCSE2020
"We aspire to teach academic honesty in CS50 at Harvard University not only by addressing academic dishonesty when it occurs but by addressing it before it does. By way of communication, course- and campus-wide awareness of policy, just-in-time prompts, interventional conversations, and problem sets have we tried to preempt submission of plagiarized work. But few interventions have had significant or lasting effects on the number of instances thereof. Most impactful has been the addition of one sentence to the course's syllabus, a "regret clause" that encourages students to come forward within 72 hours of some dishonest act on their part, before the course itself is even aware. While we might zero the work in question in such cases, we commit to not escalating the matter further to the university's honor council, where the outcome might instead be admonishment, probation, or even required withdrawal from the university itself. We instead advise students on how best to move forward and connect them as needed with support structures on campus for academics and mental health. Since 2014 have 89 students invoked the clause, between 1% and 3% of the course's student body each year."
If you get stuck on a problem set for a function for couple days, because you are unable to visualize, what the problem set is asking you to do, it's absolutely fine and necessary to look at a explanation online, don't feel guilty by literally trying to understand the problem.
The reason why people start online courses is to LEARN
If you're stuck and give up on a problem you don't LEARN
will our certificates be revoked for doing that?
Love the class. I'm taking it online. My main note is that not everyone thinks/learns the same as you, and the biggest issue I've noticed acros multiple classes is the idea that students understand your (and other professor's) logical thought processes, when we know most don't (or our country would be full of coders, which it isn't).
I hope you'll take this constructively, because, again, I love the class.
The easiest way to bring "visual learners" into the fold (I'm an artist by trade, so learn visually) is to do a few examples of similar problems in class. And when I say do examoples, I LITERALLY MEAN DO EXAMPLES from start to finish. What you and other professors in online courses have a tendency of doing is showing a barebones example nothing like the problem sets and then telling the class some theories and then sending them off alone to "figure it out". I equate this to teaching someone how to conjugate verbs in a new language and then teaching them the alphabet in that language and then telling them to start conjugating verbs in that language, when they've never actually scene words in that language written down.
The Mario set is a perfect example. Doing the "easy" one in class from start to finish would have been great and then giving us variations of it as problem sets would ahve been great. Theoretically I understand loops within loops after using Scratch (which was amazing as a visual learner), but had zero clue how to write it in code since you never actually did a real world problem in class. How would I know how to to write it? I found a great UA-cam video online of a guy going through step by step to teach where every piece of code goes and exactly why it goes where it does. This not only taught me the theories, but showed me the written language as well. I watched the "easy Mario" and with that knowledge I was able to figure out how to create the "hard mario". This is what I want, to be able to see a problem and actually undertand why I'm writing the code the way I need to. Your lectures alone are not imparting that skillset.
Just my two cents.
I agree
Totally agree with you!! In the Credit problem I am stucked and had no idea at all on how to develop the logic path and code to perform the calculation by just watching Brian's tutorial video.
@@brunobmedici I'm glad it wasn't just me, haha.
agree with all of this. the lectures are full of useful information and he’s very excited to teach but then you get to the problem sets and it’s like 5% of what was gone over in the lecture and you’re left to figure out the remaining 95%. the hints and walkthroughs don’t give you enough information, no one in the discord ever wants to give you any help or nudge you in the right direction so you’re forced to find help via other resources. and those resources are people who actually want to show you how to get from point A to B, without giving you the answer but explaining everything every step of the way from why you use a certain integer, command line.. etc. if this course is being advertised as “ for beginner” then it needs to truly be for beginners. going from Scratch in Wk0 to C programming in Wk1 with a full lab and 2 problem sets each was such a big jump and extremely difficult, especially when the problem sets include about 3 to 5 loops each. I’m currently on Wk2 and losing my mind but i really want to get this done.
Totally agree with everything you said. I learn best visually as well (journalism grad here) and my best teachers in grade school helped me understand concepts by writing them down and going over the concepts/problems with me. I find it frustrating that it should take weeks to solve 1 problem. I understand it's a Harvard-level course, but it's still an introductory course and a lot of us don't think in the technical way were being taught. Unfortunately, this barebones style of teaching is still in this course a year later.
I mean if I’m being real, I’m pretty sure everyone had the same code for pset1 on the hello assignment
I think you're missing the point. This applies to more complex assignments.
@@sunmaw108 i think you're missing the joke
@@nottletottle "if I'm being real", I'd usually think that would mean that they're not joking. May be wrong though, I apologise either way.
@@sunmaw108 aw man don't apologize
Lol
It's amazing to have a bit of taste of what study in Harvard can be! Just by understanding the ideas and effort behind the Academic Honesty principles it's clear why Harvard University is so famous and well classified among universities worldwide... I've been working hard (it's Saturday 6:02pm now and I'm about to end pset3 this evening!) to have the Harvard diploma regarding CS50 sticked to my wall by the end of the year.
Kind regards and my biggest recognition to the entire CS50 team that makes it possible for students around the globe. Very much appreciated!
See you at the finish line!
are you through with the cs50 course already?
@@collinscisiwu Working on pset7 today!
@@rodrigoritter wow, you are pretty fast
David, thankyou, from a student in Australia. Your integrity evolution, and the way you police it is enviable. Probably to all higher learing institutes globally. I'm doing CS50 right now and loving it, and hating it! Hate on pset3 ... I think i understand the programming required, just dont understand the over all workings. If you split that up into 5 problems - easy. But when you give us pre-written code, the hardest part for me was understanding what that code did. If you made me write if myself i'd get it, but I kind of inherited it and was lost. I managed psets 1 and 2 in a week, then pset3 took me a month to figure out.
Hello, I am currently taking cs50. I was struggling alone on a problem set for a few days. After some time I gave up and looked online for a tutorial on how to resolve this problem. Even tho it isn't academically perfect it was helpful to me, as I learned the mental pathways to solve similar problems and used what I learned in the following pset. As I had the same code as the tutorial, I didn't submit it.
the online support is fantastic. There's no need to look online for the solution, I can get a response back in the Discord channel in about 2 minutes, to assist with troubles.
A kind of problem that occurs is that when you are not sure for a solution and you are searching in an honest way online on not the solution but information to help you learn and understand how to approach a problem it is easy to accidentally stumble upon the solution or code and once you see it you can't unsee it. And for things like basic algorithms there is really only one way to do it (at least functionally not stylistically)
@@oOXKaliber could you send me a link to whichever discord server you're referring to?
@@oOXKaliber hi could you share link to online support? Because i stuck in some psets.
i bet all the people that got caught were watching the live cs50 problem set tutorial videos on UA-cam.
I have a computer science programmer tutoring me. So far shes been very helpful and I am very grateful. Im older and I am not a newly graduated student. Computers in the home were unheard of when I graduated HS and were just starting to come out while I was in College. So I am old and slow. As far as the certification, its only to put on my wall to say Im not totally old and worthless.
I look at people's code for a particular solution and really devote a huge amount of time im understanding how it fundamentally works and why it was applied for a problem. It sucks that I get fixated on that solution sometimes.
Yeah, I'm sorry, but the problem set topics you guys are making is like: "Water consists of 2 Hydrogen and 1 Oxygen atoms, here's some Hydrogen and Oxygen, now go make me a cup of tea"...
Unless you are experienced in writing a code, there's no hope for you...
the material given in the class and the shorts is more than enough to cover the course and the problem sets. hell i'd say with the option to opt in or out of more challenging problems in some of the sets, they've hit the nail on the head with difficulty.
well I felt the same way until I took an external course on udemy about c programming
@@ahmedelgalaly8008 the same way as of? the Nikolozka (current is more difficult) or of the Ryn (current is good)
@@ryn7782 That's your opinion... There is enough information in the lectures but for someone with 0 programming experience who hasn't been in school for awhile, it isn't well laid out. This course is well suited to someone with programming experience and who has a solid math foundation or currently in school
@@billr5842 I agree. I also would like to add that not having anyone to "show your code too" for help, leads to looking at code on the internet. Ive been trying, if needed, watch a video showing the Problem Solved. Try to understand it. Walk away for a bit. Then re try to implement said new idea into my own code. Its been tough. But I also am a Auto Tech by trade. So this is completely new to me.
There are some students who simply do not have a programing back ground, especially those taking HarvardX courses. The online solutions can be very useful for those who do not even know where to begin.
I would suggest that student can state that their work is partially, or maybe entirely copied. The school can consider to grade that work or not.
That defeats the purpose of the problem sets. They are to show you understand the lessons. There is plenty of support if you are struggling with a problem set, without point blank copying. You don't learn by copying, you learn by figuring it out on your own.
@@Zachattack0_0No way lessons teach enough to go through an entire Pset in your own, especiallty Week 4 Memory.
Great to see the processes to keep the academic honesty. It also made me think that some of the solution may lie in adding resources to help struggling students which would be a better allocation of resources. Perhaps it happens but may not have been addressed sufficiently in the video. All too often, teachers teach only the super kids in class!
I very much agree with this! I have spent >20 hours on some single pset problems after watching and rewatching the lectures and walkthroughs. I have felt lost, and with many unanswered questions (not: here's a problem with my code questions, but: how do I approach this problem questions). The biggest thing I would wish for is if the walkthoughs just had more full examples of code using the functions the pset requires. They don't have to be related to the pset at all, just using the functions, so we can get a sense for how they work better. maybe I'm just slow at learning programming, but sometimes it just feels too hard.
everytime i finished pset all by my self, i felt so fulfilled！Thank you and your team!
I admit I use the videos as a reference because I am new but when I finish the code. I begin to interpret it in my own manner. Then I change it to fit what I want.
I would advocate that seeking assistance in the slack, discord, or other communication mediums is how you should go about the course. Viewing walk through tutorials online, is clearly a violation of the honor code.
im only in week 4 and i dont know how the problems are later on. But i can imagine that ALOT of the code submitted until now, looks very similar or even exactly the same, bc theres really not many different ways to get to the same solution, given the knowledge and building blocks we have. Sure, some ppl will make it more complicated than it needs to be and might have some extra lines, but im sure alot of ppl will have similar, if not the same code.
just today i saw someone post a section of their code in the CS50 discord and it looked exactly like my code. well, except for a little mistake they made and need help with. But i guess what im trying to say is obvious by now. This got me thinking, if we could theoretically be flagged for copying code, since we have the same code (at least for that section), even tho we wrote it each by their own.
Another thing is, alot of ppl are completely new to coding and simply lack the way of thinking or have a hard time to "just start from nothing", even tho they in theory understand those principals. They just have trouble visualizing it and "starting" with actual lines of code. And this is something that simply comes with experience and by doing it over and over again. But those problem sets often require you to use that new knowledge for the first time ever, so getting that little starting help with their code, can really help alot of ppl until they get used to this way of thinking and general structures of programs and how to go about them.
Now you could argue that banging your head against the wall for hours or days, achieves the same thing without any help, and while that is true, theres also arguments to be made for looking up some logic or code, just to get pointed in the right direction with less time investment and frustration.
I wouldn't have thought that even elite schools like Harvard would have the same problems with plagiarism in laboratory exercises as other universities. Thank you that such lessons are also shared publicly.
More of the “Section” classes would be great. I consider myself intelligent but not highly intelligent and math is not my strong point. I love working with computers though and am very persistent: can’t stand when I don’t understand something I want to understand. That’s how I’m doing it mostly: I’m willing my way through.
I don’t know how realistic me finishing this course before the end of this year is as I’ve been stuck in week one for over two weeks, going on three. And I am definitely using extra resources like a book on C and online tutorials that explain more in-depth how loops work mathematically for example. If I was in University and had the luxury of asking a teacher during or after class some specific questions..
I’m sure if I was great at math the course would be more doable. I don’t do much linear thinking naturally. Hence my screen-name.. We’ll see. I loved what you said in the beginning: if nothing else this course will teach you how to think. And if I don’t make it to the end perhaps it will have done just that and that would be a win already. Either that or just scorched neural connections and a burnout 😅
Hi, I would like to point out one aspect of why the number of cases brought to the honor council are increasing. If the programs the students are asked to write are the same year after year there will be a higher possibility for a students code being about or exactly the same as someone else’s. It happened to me in Iceland that they thought my group for a problem solving class outright copied the solution online, which we didn’t, but one of the members of our group liked reading up on and solving problems online in his free time, so he had seen a similar problem before.
It looks like he addresses that in the video at around the 6:00 mark.
Matt Williams Yes, I noticed, but it seams like they just don’t want to do the work themselves. Change the assignment parameters every year or every other year because there are thousands of students learning the same way of coding and there are bound to be rather close similarities from time to time. Of course monitoring is needed, but those who cheat on the assignments are just cheating themselves and it will show during exams.
i can see where you're coming from but perhaps the questions are too well designed, i.e. to assist the students to pick up a wide array of skills on their own and re-designing might missed out one or more things that cs50 would like the students to learn.
@@andrewmcubero If the comments they write on the program or the names they use for variables are the same, the problem has probably been copied. He says they use humans for a final assessment on whether it's been copied, so it's not just a machine checking it. Also, I'm guessing these cheating students don't really understand the code, so just by asking them a couple of questions you'd be able to see that they don't have a clue
Maria N. It’s not really about if they are guilty or innocent. The discussion is about the increase in cases. Some people will try cheating by looking it up online and they catch that most of the time, except in cases where the student actually learns the topic and can make it his/her own. The only way though to reduce the number of cases is by actually changing the assignments. Every year hundreds or even thousands of students work on these assignments and it shouldn’t be surprising that some results would come up 90-100% the same.
Why some students cheat or copy someone else's work from the internet?...
Some classes or subjects are challenging (but of course not impossible for a human to learn or pass), however sometimes students be going through some tough times outside their classes, like not being able to buy food, pay rent, conflict with other people, etc.
Sometimes students just can't find the answer to a problem, which teachers have set a deadline to submit. To that I say if students need more time to complete an assignment, their teachers should be reasonable enough to give them more time, that is if the student actually has a valid excuse as to why they were not able to complete the assignment on time.
But of course, claiming credit for someone else's work isn't right.
Have you or any who reads this ever cheated on an assignment?
When you cheat you are not learning anything. I am in quarantine now and I am taking this class because I want to learn. Anyone can do a cut and paste, I am an essential employee who has been out of work for the better part of this year because I am putting the interests of others around me first before my self. Need to use my time in quarantine wisely so it will benefit me for years to come. No one who cheats is going to remember squat from a class, I don't know anything about coding. Paid for this class but you know what I would rather barely pass and know where I need improvement then to use copy paste. That literally makes me sick that people would even do this, and not only do it but do it and think that they would not get caught.
I'm taking the same course but not submitting it for credit. I look at the solutions online and I am learning far quicker than just sitting around hitting my head against the wall. I am trying to learn how to program... not pass a class. I am learning extremely quickly despite having 0 experience. Without the online solutions I'd probably be at about 50% efficiency.
My readability one and Caesar one is very similar to the solutions available online....and I'm being honest....I didn't cheat...not a single time....all of the submission is my work.
I go through the solution online after completing the assignment every time.... sometimes they work perfectly, sometimes I miss some requirements but I never cheated
But this is making me worried now....what would happen if millions of people used the same logic as me... And I always go to the straight forward solution that comes in my mind for the first time if it works... I don't touch it or try to enhance my code.... which now left me worried that millions of people also do the same😢
i'm on caesar pset and i was watching how ppl code and copy the way they code, but not the code they used it was my own code i was just copying the way they think, i don't want to be banned. please any advice ?
What about plagiarism on paid course through edx @David J. MALAN
same, I had a question about that
Why noone mentions that the easier problem sets have literally one solution? The week one for example. Yes you can name your variable differently and minor differences, but even those options will run out after a while, so there will be similar codes in the end, especially if someone follows the conventional naming of things like i, j, k, x, y etxc. Obviously this only stands for the problems that are simple enough to only have really just one good solution.
Indeed, the first few weeks don't really count since there are so few lines of code. But from week 4 and beyond if students have the same lines, the same comments, and the same variable names you can start seeing patterns.
you think theyre kicking students out of their courses because loop variable naming conventions? students probably get caught later on in the courses
Hey! For 2021 can you show how to implement the functions more frequently? It’ll be helpful. I’m struggling to understand how it works and have to ask my father for help frequently due to this.
I have a buddy that lives down the road that helps me out anytime I run into a problem. I will say when I did the population lab in week 1 I kept getting 4/10 right and I rewrote my code about 7 times before I realized your grading system kept marking my code wrong just because I put years instead of Years. My code wasn’t incorrect because it definitely got me the correct answers. I know capitalization is important but when saying printf(years or printf(Years. I didn’t understand why the capitalization mattered here. Nonetheless I eventually got 10/10 of that lab.
hey friend how can i check my scores to each probelm set and lab?
Hi the CS50 2020 Courses Plays the videos from September 2019 ?
ParNeX Yes
It is the best course I have taken so far. Very practical and concise yet tsunami of lessons and key-points goes through a single session of Dr. Malan. Simply loved it!
Why is this video not in the course material? By chance I come across this on UA-cam as I am on the course right now and the annoying Google algorithms link up CS50 related
This only applies to problem sets and not labs, right? Just to make sure
Thank you Prof. David J Malan
Very welcome, Mohammad!
do I still have to worry about this if i am taking the course purely for learning and i am not paying for the certificate?
If you're doing this purely for learning, then cheating would be kind of counter-productive. Don't you think? What matters at the end of the day is do you understand what you're doing?
@@JGoodie02 strongly disagree. You can sit around and waste a lot of time trying to come up with a solution. Or, you can try your best and use the online solutions to point you in the right direction rather than wasting time. Repitition is very important to learn the skills, and wasting hours on a single problem isn't helping that much. I would say I am about 100% more efficient through this method and am confidently learning everything. Without having the online solutions I'd still be sitting around without advancing. There are skills to be gained though through persevering and completing the assignment on your own. For a complete beginner it is a waste of time. This course would be better with many more easier problems gradually building up to a harder problem.
is it against the rules to ask questions on stack overflow???
asking question is fine for understanding and arguing about the bugs and the right way to fix your bugs, OTHERWISE IT'S NOT GOOD TO COPY OR PASTE OTHERS CODE my friend
hey! just wanted to say that this course is amazing, it's like having a little taste of what being in Harvard is, I'm about to finish the CS50X course, after 6 weeks of hard work, I couldn't go any faster because English is not my main language, and because of school (I'm 14yo)
PS: David you are an amazing teacher!
hey! im 15 and i just started the course! im just wondering how its going for you! Did the course help you do u still code? just wondering you dont have to answer! thnx!
@@1d_4e32 Hey! When I wrote that I was 14 and now I'm 16, I do still code, I'm finishing HS and about to study CS or Mechatronics. And yes, the course helped me, but it's not your best option, what I'd recommend you to do is to go on another kind of course, (like codecademy, freecodecamp, or UA-cam videos) and learn basic python, C, and C++. I say that because the course is good but isn't the best for begginers. Once you learn through that kind of tutorial you should go to this course, it will be a lot faster and better that way. I hope it helps
You rug-pulled hard on PSet-3 "Runoff vote".
I do have a question,is it fine to looking for walkthrough since it didnt directly show code?
Do these policies also apply to edx cs50 online class students?
Yes, they mention it applies to both off and online students.
@@imsorrysweetheart6056 I saw David's reply to a comment on this video saying this only applied to students at the campus
it really depends on what you are looking for out of the course. If you're just trying to learn coding, the standards are a lot more casual
@@doodoopoo yeah he said it only applies to students on campus
It looks like a Very useful course ...thank you David ...I want to learn it ....how can I do that prefectly??
Learn coding perfectly? impossible
The course if freely available at cs50.harvard.edu/college/2020/spring/. The AP version is available at cs50.harvard.edu/ap/.
NOTE: You do NOT college credit unless you are enrolled at the course or pass the AP Exam.
See cs50.harvard.edu/x/2020/ or cs50.edx.org/, Monir!
Does the 10% in 2016 mean 1/10th of the total students?
7:25 i found the wording around here to be difficult to follow - so long sentence. can someone please explain?
> " _or weighting the exams in the class much more heavily than that which the students are spending most of
their time on in the first place._ "
What he means is that students spend most of their time on problem sets or assignments you can say, so for him, it is more logical to assess the students "more heavily" from the problem sets rather than the conventional exams.
only if my college was this much interested in students :(
If someone submits a code that is Impressed by someone else's code (probably from github). And completes his cs50x course, will he get his certificate. If not, will he be eligible to resubmit the plagiarized problem set.
I hope plagiarism is accepted
yo how do you know if your submittion is in the plagiarism checker?
At design school I had gotten busted for plagiarising an article on art history lol. It was hilarious when I informed my HOD that the article I was accused of plagiarising was in fact written by none other than me lmao. I actually did a bunch of freelance writing work while pursuing my masters degree, and I always tried my best to repurpose my commissioned work into class work to save myself a ton of time and effort lmao.
Is this include edX cs50 online class ?
This talk relates to Harvard College, but the policy applies to CS50x as well! Cf. cs50.harvard.edu/x/honesty/.
are you asking for a friend Sanjay?
@@davidjmalan Wait so this only applies to students working at the campus?
@Ishaan Doddamani how do you know?
@@keatonshawhan7617 The professor replied to this same comment saying it did
Does this apply off-campus too?
yes
To anyone else struggling with CS50, spend a few weeks going through "Bro Code" videos on UA-cam. You'll thank me later.
Sir I want cs50 coding online API
Afraid I'm not sure what you mean!
@@davidjmalan OMG are you the real David Malan as in the person who teaches cs50?
@@notanoobx684 Yes he is
So am I understanding that your not supposed to google or search solutions to problems? It seems like googling “answer to cs50 p.s. #” should be cheating but googling “do x,y,Z in Python” is a crucial part or coding in any job and shouldn’t be demonized?
Does this apply to online students taking the course from Edx? Just making sure, thanks :)
Exactly what I wanna know...🤔
I Emailed David Sir and he said YES
@@neelamrani6113 how long before you're informed to have been suspected of dishonesty
obv yeah, at the end of the day, this is a course offered by harvard
"It is far better, we assure you, to leave an answer blank rather than risk it. This may be an online course, but it is offered by Harvard, and we're going to hold you to that standard. The full essence of all work you submit to this course should be your own."
Copy paste doesn't make new innovations.
Please
Hi sir