Absolutely right! But how do you give essays in a very large class? Grading them is an enormous job. And that's not what TA's are paid for (unless the university provides a "grader" which I've never come across) J
> Use short answer and essay questions. It's more work, but students can't > cheat and they (are more likely to) learn the concepts. > > Steve > > > ............... > Stephen L. Young, PhD > Weed Ecologist > University of Nebraska-Lincoln > http://ipscourse.unl.edu/iwep > Twitter: @NAIPSC > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Malcolm McCallum > Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 1:27 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] fake papers, the h-index, and publish or perish > > This is what happens when two things are paired together. > 1) impact ratings driving science instead of the other way around > 2) lacking control over cheating in college/grad school. > > I have been shocked at the large amount of cheating that goes on, and that > is ignored, even in professional schools. Here is a nice link for anyone > who does online grading automatically... > > http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1347802-Cheating-on-an-online-test/page2 > > On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 12:18 PM, David Duffy <[email protected]> wrote: >> "Labbé says that the latest discovery is merely one symptom of a >> "spamming war started at the heart of science" in which researchers >> feel pressured to rush out papers to publish as much as possible" >> >> >> *Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers* >> >> Conference proceedings removed from subscription databases after >> scientist reveals that they were computer-generated. >> >> Nature.com >> >> 24 February 2014 >> >> The publishers Springer and IEEE are removing more than 120 papers >> from their subscription services after a French researcher discovered >> that the works were computer-generated nonsense. >> >> Over the past two years, computer scientist Cyril Labbé of Joseph >> Fourier University in Grenoble, France, has catalogued >> computer-generated papers that made it into more than 30 published >> conference proceedings between >> 2008 and 2013. Sixteen appeared in publications by Springer, which is >> headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany, and more than 100 were published >> by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), based >> in New York. Both publishers, which were privately informed by Labbé, >> say that they are now removing the papers. >> >> Among the works were, for example, a paper published as a proceeding >> from the 2013 International Conference on Quality, Reliability, Risk, >> Maintenance, and Safety Engineering, held in Chengdu, China. (The >> conference website says that all manuscripts are "reviewed for merits >> and >> contents".) The authors of the paper, entitled 'TIC: a methodology for >> the construction of e-commerce', write in the abstract that they >> "concentrate our efforts on disproving that spreadsheets can be made >> knowledge-based, empathic, and compact". (Nature News has attempted to >> contact the conference organizers and named authors of the paper but >> received no reply*; however at least some of the names belong to real >> people. The IEEE has now removed the paper). >> >> *Update: One of the named authors, Su Wei at Lanzhou University, >> replied to Nature News on 25 February. He said that he first learned >> of the article when conference organizers notified his university in >> December 2013; and that he does not know why he was a listed co-author >> on the paper. "The matter is being looked into by the related >> investigators," he said. >> >> How to create a nonsense paper >> >> Labbé developed a way to automatically detect manuscripts composed by >> a piece of software called SCIgen, which randomly combines strings of >> words to produce fake computer-science papers. SCIgen was invented in >> 2005 by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) >> in Cambridge to prove that conferences would accept meaningless papers >> - and, as they put it, "to maximize amusement" (see 'Computer >> conference welcomes gobbledegook paper'). A related program generates >> random physics manuscript titles on the satirical website arXiv vs. >> snarXiv. SCIgen is free to download and use, and it is unclear how >> many people have done so, or for what purposes. SCIgen's output has >> occasionally popped up at conferences, when researchers have submitted >> nonsense papers and then revealed the trick. >> >> Labbé does not know why the papers were submitted - or even if the >> authors were aware of them. Most of the conferences took place in >> China, and most of the fake papers have authors with Chinese >> affiliations. Labbé has emailed editors and authors named in many of >> the papers and related conferences but received scant replies; one >> editor said that he did not work as a program chair at a particular >> conference, even though he was named as doing so, and another author >> claimed his paper was submitted on purpose to test out a conference, >> but did not respond on follow-up. Nature has not heard anything from a >> few enquiries. >> >> "I wasn't aware of the scale of the problem, but I knew it definitely >> happens. We do get occasional e-mails from good citizens letting us >> know where SCIgen papers show up," says Jeremy Stribling, who co-wrote >> SCIgen when he was at MIT and now works at VMware, a software company >> in Palo Alto, California. >> >> "The papers are quite easy to spot," says Labbé, who has built a >> website where users can test whether papers have been created using >> SCIgen. His detection technique, described in a study1 published in >> Scientometrics in 2012, involves searching for characteristic vocabulary >> generated by SCIgen. >> Shortly before that paper was published, Labbé informed the IEEE of 85 >> fake papers he had found. Monika Stickel, director of corporate >> communications at IEEE, says that the publisher "took immediate action >> to remove the papers" and "refined our processes to prevent papers not >> meeting our standards from being published in the future". In December >> 2013, Labbé informed the IEEE of another batch of apparent SCIgen >> articles he had found. Last week, those were also taken down, but the >> web pages for the removed articles give no explanation for their >> absence. >> >> Ruth Francis, UK head of communications at Springer, says that the >> company has contacted editors, and is trying to contact authors, about >> the issues surrounding the articles that are coming down. The relevant >> conference proceedings were peer reviewed, she confirms - making it >> more mystifying that the papers were accepted. >> >> The IEEE would not say, however, whether it had contacted the authors >> or editors of the suspected SCIgen papers, or whether submissions for >> the relevant conferences were supposed to be peer reviewed. "We >> continue to follow strict governance guidelines for evaluating IEEE >> conferences and publications," Stickel said. >> >> Labbé is no stranger to fake studies. In April 2010, he used SCIgen to >> generate 102 fake papers by a fictional author called Ike Antkare [see >> pdf]. Labbé showed how easy it was to add these fake papers to the >> Google Scholar database, boosting Ike Antkare's h-index, a measure of >> published output, to 94 - at the time, making Antkare the world's 21st >> most highly cited scientist. Last year, researchers at the University >> of Granada, Spain, added to Labbé's work, boosting their own citation >> scores in Google Scholar by uploading six fake papers with long lists >> to their own previous work2. >> >> Labbé says that the latest discovery is merely one symptom of a >> "spamming war started at the heart of science" in which researchers >> feel pressured to rush out papers to publish as much as possible. >> >> There is a long history of journalists and researchers getting spoof >> papers accepted in conferences or by journals to reveal weaknesses in >> academic quality controls - from a fake paper published by physicist >> Alan Sokal of New York University in the journal Social Text in 1996, >> to a sting operation by US reporter John Bohannon published in Science >> in 2013, in which he got more than 150 open-access journals to accept >> a deliberately flawed study for publication. >> >> Labbé emphasizes that the nonsense computer science papers all >> appeared in subscription offerings. In his view, there is little >> evidence that open-access publishers - which charge fees to publish >> manuscripts - necessarily have less stringent peer review than >> subscription publishers. >> >> Labbé adds that the nonsense papers were easy to detect using his >> tools, much like the plagiarism checkers that many publishers already >> employ. But because he could not automatically download all papers >> from the subscription databases, he cannot be sure that he has spotted >> every SCIgen-generated paper. >> >> -- >> >> Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit >> Botany >> University of Hawaii >> 3190 Maile Way >> Honolulu Hawaii 96822 USA >> 1-808-956-8218 > > > > -- > Malcolm L. McCallum > Department of Environmental Studies > University of Illinois at Springfield > > Managing Editor, > Herpetological Conservation and Biology > > "Nothing is more priceless and worthy of preservation than the rich array > of animal life with which our country has been blessed. It is a > many-faceted treasure, of value to scholars, scientists, and nature > lovers alike, and it forms a vital part of the heritage we all share as > Americans." > -President Richard Nixon upon signing the Endangered Species Act of > 1973 into law. > > "Peer pressure is designed to contain anyone with a sense of drive" - > Allan Nation > > 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S. Gilbert > 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, > and pollution. > 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction > MAY help restore populations. > 2022: Soylent Green is People! > > The Seven Blunders of the World (Mohandas Gandhi) Wealth w/o work Pleasure > w/o conscience Knowledge w/o character Commerce w/o morality Science w/o > humanity Worship w/o sacrifice Politics w/o principle > > Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is > for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential > and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or > distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please > contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original > message. >
