To prevent students from changing answers, then submitting exams for regrading, Gelbart says his graders refuse to regrade exams that were taken in pencil.

"Even that wasn't enough," Gelbart says, "because if spaces were left blank the student could just fill them in. So we've started photo-copying exams randomly as a deterrent."

Gelbart also says that the instructors for Biological Sciences 1, "Introductory Genetics, Molecular, and Developmental Biology," change the format of the labs each year so that students cannot use data from previous years.

"Having learned from experience, we announce that all labs are different from the year before," he says. "In the past it's been clear that students used data from previous years, even if the format of the lab had been changed."

Gelbart says that recent cases of academic dishonesty in the biology department have involved various kinds of take-home assignments--collaboration on lab reports, or take-home writing assignments.

Gelbart adds that he is pleased that cheating seems to be in decline in the biology department. Although eight students from his department went before the Ad Board in 1994-95 in two separate incidents of illegal collaboration, he says he is not aware of any Ad Board cases from his department in the past two years.

But statistics on academic dishonesty in different departments can be misleading, because different disciplines are susceptible to different types of cheating.

Gary Feldman, chair of the Department of Physics, says that in his seven years in the department, he does not remember a single case of academic dishonesty.

He suggests that one reason for his department's exemplary record may be the format of the average physics exam.

"Our exams are not susceptible to the easiest forms of cheating since they emphasize problem-solving," he says. "They are usually open-book or allow notes or formula sheets."

Professor Clifford H. Taubes, head tutor of the Department of Mathematics, says that his department does not see much academic dishonesty.

"It doesn't happen at all in upper-level classes, and we only have one or two each year in the 1,000 or so students in introductory calculus," he says.

According to Expository Writing Preceptor Anne E. Fernald, plagiarism is an emotional ordeal for the instructor as well as the plagiarist.

A few years ago, a student in one of her classes submitted a transcription of an article for a class assignment.

"The thing that shocked me the most about the case was how angry I was because the student had betrayed the reason for coming to college," Fernald said. "By transcribing something out of a book, she...gave up any goodwill I had toward her, or helping her with her situation."