In my opinion, tightening up the safeguards isn't the right approach. Rather, institutions, particularly educational institutions, need to fulfill their obligation to inculcate the right values in people. Cheating and petty corruption culture is an existential threat and the solution isn't to catch the cheaters, its acculturate them to follow the rules.
Educational institutions, however, have totally abandoned this obligation. Shocking cheating behavior will merit just a note in someone's record, if administrators are even willing to take it that far. Cheating isn't publicized, shamed, and punished in the way necessary to have any impact on the cheaters' values. Instead, everyone gets to save face.
When budgets depend on covering up cheating, cheating will be covered up. Educational institutions are failing to uphold their responsibility to society (partly) because society has largely abdicated its responsibility to educational institutions by slashing funding and grants. In the absence of public funding, the student (or the donor), not society at large, is the customer, and the customer is always right.
I totally agree with your opinion here, and especially that "cheating and petty corruption" - and the breakdown of public trust that follows - is an actual existential threat, something that may ultimately lead to a collapse of technological civilization. The current trend of trying to figure out trustless solutions for everything actually worries me.
The current trend of trying to figure out trustless solutions for everything actually worries me.
If you're worried about breakdown in the face of loss of trust, then these sorts of solutions seem like very important things to be looking at. Do we have any good ideas about how to create trust at the institutional level?
I agree with your concerns. I think they are representative of a broader theme - the acceleration of technical change seems like it will eventually (if it hasn't already) bring us to a point where the rate of cultural change is too slow to catch up to properly adapt to what is now possible.
In my university, a small ring of students were flagged by our Computer Science department's automated plagiarism software. Upon investigation, it was determined who the culprits were. All involved students ---including the ones who shared their code--- were awarded a grade of XF, "failure due to academic dishonesty". Since the course was a gateway to other courses, most of them were effectively expelled.
In another course, the professor and assistants would view videotapes of the lecture to catch students who were taking quizzes for other students. Those students were dealt with as well. The XF grade stays on the transcript forever.
It may be one data point, but there is at least one university serious about cheating.
I would like to generalize that to all American universities, but I don't have enough data.
I don't think this can be solved by punishing the cheaters, or "educating" them about the consequences. The problem is that expectations and pressure on individuals have gone out of hand. If you feel that your very existence depends on getting outstanding results, of course you will consider cheating.
Educational institutions, however, have totally abandoned this obligation. Shocking cheating behavior will merit just a note in someone's record, if administrators are even willing to take it that far. Cheating isn't publicized, shamed, and punished in the way necessary to have any impact on the cheaters' values. Instead, everyone gets to save face.