Students at CS50 MOOC Cheated After Taking Answers From Public Forums

More than 60 students enrolled in the HarvardX’s CS50 edX course have been accused of academic dishonesty after they took answers to problem sets and apparently cheated, according to The Crimson.

Some course staffers of Computer Science 50 (CS50) said that the course’s recent expansion and the online availability of the answer key likely played a role.

CS50 enrollees can post and view problem set code online on at least two different question-and-answer forums. Students in the course can also upload problem set answers to file-sharing websites like GitHub.

CS50 course staff operate a publicly accessible forum on Reddit where students can post code and ask questions. Posted code remains public, though the Reddit forum guidelines urge users to use their best judgment.