[ShaneP]

Just another anecdote about that issue...I was a grader for a couple of classes (basically the classes were large, and I was helping the TA with the grading). In one of the classes, the TA saw that there were about 4 groups of 2-3 each where the solutions resembled each other closely. TA brought this up to the prof (and asked me to keep an eye out). The Prof talked with the students, they swore up and down that they didn't copy, etc...so nothing much was done then.

A week later, I was grading the other class' homework, and I noticed about 10 homeworks that had at least a few questions (and some the whole thing) copied directly from the solution manual. Some were pretty good copying, as someone said, changing variables a bit and stuff, but a couple had everything verbatim, including the little half sentence segues between equations. Brought this to the prof of the other class, and as we were talking, the first prof came by. Comparing students, there was a large overlap in the copiers, which really pissed the first prof off since they swore to him they didn't cheat.

What wound up happening was that depending on how much was copied, they either got a 0 on just that homework, or a 0 on that and a couple other homeworks. Actually there were a couple that were only vaguely suspicious, and those probably just got warnings. I didn't have to do anything more. I wouldn't think you'd have to do a lot more, as you're just the one who noticed the copying, and the evidence is the written homework itself, not something pertaining just to *you*. That is, you didn't notice someone looking at someone else's sheet on an exam, or someone with notes on the floor or something where you're the only source of the evidence.

And I think the two things that helped noone argue it was first, the penalty fit the cheating and second was the pattern established. A couple of copied homeworks, someone could just say they worked together (which is what they did say), but when it comes out of the manual, or they are consistantly similar, that's hard to argue.

Additionally (I know this from another class...) at my university there is a central repository for reporting cheaters. The forms have spaces for a description of what cheating occured, and what the punishment was. There was also another checkbox or two for whether the reporter wanted additional action taken. I think it was just a recommendation but I'd guess usually the recommendation is heeded when it's 'don't do anything else'. You might want to see if there's a place like this at your university, since you might be able to see if those students already have a history.

Hope this helps, and as I said, neither the cheating episodes I was a part of (one on homeworks, one copying on midterms) actually took that much time to deal with.

Shane