Cheating College Students

Mariam Aly, an assistant professor at Columbia University, has tried everything to keep her students from cheating. In her cognitive neuroscience class, she gives her students a week to complete an open-book exam. And, as part of that exam, the nearly 180 students in the class have to sign an honor code.

But they're still cheating. And dealing with student misconduct, she says, is the worst part of her job. "It's just awkward and painful for everybody involved," Aly says. "And it's really hard to blame them for it. You do feel disappointed and frustrated."

Her students are facing unprecedented levels of stress and uncertainty, she says, and she gets that. "I didn't go to school during a pandemic."

As college moved online in the COVID-19 crisis, many universities are reporting increases, sometimes dramatic ones, in academic misconduct. At Virginia Commonwealth University, reports of academic misconduct soared during the 2020-21 school year, to 1,077 — more than three times the previous year's number. 

At the University of Georgia, cases more than doubled; from 228 in the fall of 2019 to more than 600 last fall. And, at The Ohio State University, reported incidents of cheating were up more than 50% over the year before.  READ MORE...

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/27/1031255390/reports-of-cheating-at-colleges-soar-during-the-pandemic

JORO Spiders

A female Joro spider crawls across a branch. Credit: Davis et al, Physiological evaluation of newly invasive jorō spiders (Trichonephila clavata) in the southeastern USA compared to their naturalized cousin, Trichonephila clavipes, Physiological Entomology (2022).

If you live in Georgia, it's hard not to notice the state's latest resident.

The bright yellow, blue-black and red spiders' golden webs will be all over power lines, in trees around town and even on your front porch come summer.

The Joro spider first arrived stateside around 2013 and has since spread across the state and Southeast. But new research from the University of Georgia suggests the invasive arachnids could spread through most of the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S.

There's really nothing we can do to stop them. But that's not necessarily bad news.

Joros don't appear to have much of an effect on local food webs or ecosystems, said Andy Davis, corresponding author of the study and a research scientist in the Odum School of Ecology. They may even serve as an additional food source for native predators like birds.

"People should try to learn to live with them," he said. "If they're literally in your way, I can see taking a web down and moving them to the side, but they're just going to be back next year."

"The way I see it, there's no point in excess cruelty where it's not needed," added Benjamin Frick, co-author of the study and an undergraduate researcher in the School of Ecology. "You have people with saltwater guns shooting them out of the trees and things like that, and that's really just unnecessary."  READ MORE...