More than 50% students admit to cheating at IIT-Bombay

MUMBAI: One in two of final-year undergraduate students at IIT-Bombay admitted in a survey that they resorted to malpractices in examinations and assignments at some point. The survey was conducted by IIT-B’s students’ magazine, InSight, in which over 300 students participated.
The survey was conducted across all final-year undergraduate students who would be leaving the institute at the end of the academic year.Questions were personally e-mailed to fifth-year dual degree and fourth-year BTech students. To prevent multiple responses from the same IP address, the team also posted the survey on a paid platform. From the batch of 867 students, over 300 responded.
“The survey’s results indicate that over 50% of the UG populace indulge in academic malpractices during their stay in the institute—a number that would be considered shocking in any institute of comparable stature,” said an editor of the magazine. As 92% of those who cheat, do it only for minor assignments, it indicates academic malpractices are more of an ‘easy way out’ than a necessity to obtain grades, pointed out Anshul Avasthi, another editor. The team also found that 20.3% students are dishonest only if the situation permitted and 15.2% thought twice before cheating. A small percentage, 7.4% of the students, agreed to have been dishonest initially, but resolved never to cheat later, while over 9% were honest initially and then resorted to dishonest means.
The dean of students’ affairs, U A Yajnik, said the institute is grappling with the issue. “Cases of dishonesty in projects and assignments have come to light only in the last two to three years. We have a stringent mechanism in place to deal with students who are found guilty. Though expulsion is the maximum punishment given in such cases (not known cases), we do ask students to take a drop for a semester or a year,” said Yajnik.
Yajnik said instructors have complained of mutual plagiarism too, where assignments of two students look similar. Web plagiarism is easy to detect, he added. “This year, we had a special orientation programme at the beginning of the academic session only to address this issue,” he said. Last year, the chemical engineering department started the practice of making students sign an honour code at the beginning of the academic year.