Actually assessing students [1] won't usually help with this kind of thing. Well-ghostwritten assignments can be pretty hard to detect.
[1] Not sure what you mean by that, as actual assessment is already universally happening IME.
[1] Not sure what you mean by that, as actual assessment is already universally happening IME.
Assignments can be useful for learning, as a way to keep students on-track. In my undergraduate days, assignments were optional, and scores on them were ignored if the exam had a higher score. That struck me as a good approach, but nowadays I think it would lead professors to create easy final exams, to avoid the low scores that lead to student complaints and problems at tenure time.