Web cheating

Along with its many wonders, the Internet has made cheating easier for students. Need a term paper by tomorrow morning? You can find one on the Internet.

But can you get away with it?

Software has been developed to detect plagiarism. Southeast Missouri State University spends $5,000 a year for a subscription to turnitin.com, a site that helps members of the faculty detect cheating in student-written papers.

That's not the only method. Southeast caught three students cheating in an online class by setting up a kind of sting. The teacher established a fake student who received an e-mail from the ringleader revealing the cheating.

The university's Center for Scholarship in Teaching and Learning acts as a resource for teachers to prevent cheating.

More than 75 percent of college students admit they do at least some cheating. That means three-fourths of America's college graduates think it will be acceptable to cheat when they get out in the "real" world. Will that take the shape of eating grapes in the produce section at the grocery store or being unfaithful to their spouse or stealing company funds?

Students who cheat, whether by using the Internet or more traditional means, do so at their own expense. They accumulate grades and degrees they don't deserve and rob themselves of knowing what they can accomplish honestly.