I wonder if it would just be too snarky to not post grades on the papers until the cheating incident was resolved? And if people asked me why I hadn't posted grades, to tell them.

I will admit I fantasized about giving everyone a 0 and telling them that I had a plagiarism incident, and if the plagiarist came forward the rest of the class would get the grades they earned, but I realize that's completely indefensible.

I don't know what to do in the future. Require everyone to do their research in the lab or the field under my supervision? Tell people "days x, y, and z are field research lab days, we will go out to THIS field site and you WILL do a project there?" or what. I don't know. Someone will still come up with a way to defeat it, that's what kills me. Maybe I need to go visit everyone's field site or look over their lab project, and sign off that I did? And create tons more work and logistics issues for myself? (Including in some cases having to drive an hour or two to reach a student's field site).

Maybe I just need to drop the project all together and just turn out crops of students with even LESS research and writing experience. Yeah. That'll show them.

Or maybe I just need to stop caring. Let the cheaters cheat. Let karma catch up to them, if it ever does. I don't know. I'm afraid not caring would lead to a class that was mostly cheaters.

Sigh. This is not helping my self-image any.