Proposal: 1 year killfile of everyone who has asked for a solutions manual

I suppose the instructors have a good excuse for not making up their own problems.

John

I don't think it necessarily makes sense to have instructors make up their own exercise problems, new every year (which would be necessary) rather than using the ones in a textbook. Realistically there's no good reason to have homework exercises count towards the student's grade anyway... except perhaps as some token amount (e.g., 10%) in a sort of an in loco parentis way so generally good students don't just completely blow them off. I had some college classes this way, and it worked well... the course grade was something like 3 exams at

30% each and 10% homework. (Although I also had some classes that were 2 exams at 40% each and 20% homework, and there was sometimes a complaint that it was very difficult to "recover" from doing poorly on one exam.)

Obviously exams should be newly constructed every year by professors (and old ones made available for studying from).

Professors are just like everyone else -- some are rather lazy, and slack if they don't think there aren't any repercussions. It's hard for professors to get decent evaluations anyway -- most students will rate a professor who gave very easy exams much higher than one who has a good teacher, entirely fair, but required siginificantly more work from the students.

If you think some of your old professors might still be teaching, check out ratemyprofessors.com some time and see if you agree with the general consensus.

---Joel

Have not seen much of that here.

I have seen specific queries about specific homework problems.

I have mixed emotions about this. If it is one or two tough-nut problems from one or several posters, I am not much worried. If it is repetitive behavior, I am worried that some little turd is getting a degree via vampire approaches.

To ask for the entire solutions manual for an entire course or textbook, is vampire all the way.

But there's something important relating to this issue that I think you _don't_ realize.

The current theory is that most of the requests for solution manuals are bogus, thus making your killfile concept meaningless. The fake requests are posted by the sellers to make would-be purchasers feel comfortable (i.e. -- everybody else is doing it, so why not).

Your idea that these "requestors" will come back to ask actual questions simply isn't born out by the data.

Better to filter the posts based on subject lines and/or contents, or else simply delete such posts quickly as soon as you recognize them as solutions manual related.

quasi

I'll also point out that those who already filter out subject lines containing the phrase "solutions manual" won't even see this thread.

quasi

"One little turd" isn't even close. There's lots of them out there.

Easy to test for though, at the interview point, you can ask them to look at one of your schematics they might be working on (of which they of course WON'T have the answers to!).

If they know enough, they'll at least fuddle their way through. If not, they'll flop.

You'll have your answer in 10 seconds.

--
Linux Registered User # 302622

Top posting, Usenet retard!

But it wasn't a _response_. It was a re-presentation. The only new content was the _introduction_ to what followed. Introductions come *before* the thing they introduce.

Soon we'll have you counting on both hands, hopefully.

Phil

--
Dear aunt, let\'s set so double the killer delete select all.
-- Microsoft voice recognition live demonstration

I kinda like what they do over in comp.arch. They answer obvious homework questions with funny, plausible, and wrong answers. It's good for a laugh and if the poser is as dumb as they usually sound, will get a second laugh later. The only problem is that the C.A crowd doesn't get to be in on the last laugh.

--
  Keith

Haha -- good one.

quasi

Jeff Liebermann snipped-for-privacy@cruzio.com posted to sci.electronics.design:

That actually sounds worthwhile.