I am in the same boat and looking for ways to check. There are a few tell-tale signs in the file properties. I'm teaching college freshman engineers. I usually teach upperclassmen mechanical engineering courses but have wanted to get involved in this course because of issues I see regularly with spatial visualization and simple hand-eye-coordination in hand drawing (students' handwriting is bad enough, but ask them to draw a freehand circle or a cube and you will want to cry). One of my regular classes got canceled due to a scheduling snafu so when asked what I wanted to teach instead, I choose graphic communications.
I only have one section of this class, while the regular instructor has the other five sections. I'm trying not to rock the boat too much but instead brainstorm to improve the class a bit. To combat cheating (but also to encourage students to do their own visualization) I'm pushing to create individualized problems, such as:
- Make a scale drawing of the layout of your dorm room.. (was thinking of asking for an uploaded picture but I'm not sure if that's an invasion of privacy).
- Draw your desk and/or chair in three views and isometric. Include a picture.
- Draw your coffee cup, especially the handle, accurately. Include a picture.
- Buy a cheap set of Legos, build something, drawing it in three views and isometric. Include a picture.
- Draw your stapler. Include a picture.
I keep trying to imagine things that everyone has that will be slightly different. I'm also trying to encourage sketching for planning drawings, so I'm considering asking for scans of the sketches used to prepare for the drawing. All of these things make it difficult (though not impossible) to cheat.
We're trying to do sketching, hand drafting with tools, AutoCAD and Solidworks this semester. I wish we had two courses instead of just one, but this is what we have right now. I'm trying to balance the three enough that the students will get "a good start" rather than become masters in the course.
