** Using WeBWorK **

Extracted from: http://www.asututor.com/Webwork_help.htm Quoted rates are $10-15 per assignment.

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I assume that a student using the "direct WeBWorK solving" service would be in violation of his or her school's academic honesty policy, but how to catch them? Perhaps with better logging facilities, we could detect this type of usage.
-sam

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Students could always get someone else to do their homework for a price, and security is low for WeBWorK simply because it's meant for "just" homework. I don't think I've ever let homework/WeBWorK count for more than 10% of the grade. A service like this would dry up under such circumstances.

My only concern would be that he may have gotten the source code for problems (from the CVS, or hacking the local server?) in order to sell general solutions 'for all web work problems.'

Carl

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We also like to have on-line homework count substantially (30%) towards the course grade because students spend a lot of time with it. The way to get around the above situation is to make a rule that students will receive a course grade that is at most one letter grade (10%) above their score on the final exam.

Lars.

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WeBWorK's low level of security

Can you elaborate? We'd like WeBWorK to be completely secure, and if there are places where security is lacking they should be fixed.

My only concern would be that he may have gotten the source code for problems (from the CVS, or hacking the local server?) in order to sell general solutions 'for all web work problems.'

It is possible for anyone to download the problem libraries and examine the code. However, they would also have to match a problem in the library to the problem they need to solve, which is not completely easy since the filenames are not given and many professors rename sets when they import them into WeBWorK ("1", "2", etc.) It is possible to search for key words in the problem to narrow down your search, so we really can't hide behind that obscurity.

I'm open to suggestions for how to balance making problem libraries freely and easily available to educators while providing a barrier to malicious students. (To start, I've added a robots.txt to our web CVS interface.)
-sam

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My comment went more towards human nature. There's really no way to tell if the person logged on to a WeBWorK lesson is really that student, or someone being paid by the student to do their homework. In fact, that's one of the services offered in the original post. The same problem has existed for years with paper and pencil homework, although in that case the instructor might notice a difference in handwriting!

At my previous position, the administration got all excited about WeBWorK and the possibility of using it for remote placement testing. When we pointed out that a well meaning parent or friend could easily give a little too much help over the shoulder, the idea was nixed. In that sense, and for that type usage, it's just too insecure.

Sorry for making your security alarms go off!

Carl

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