Glad you liked the thread.
Shuffeling questions and imposing time limits are two good strategies to thwart cheating in an online course. This thread has been very helpful to me as a newbie to the online teaching environment.
Amanda it sounds like you have created a learning environment that certainly will help deter students from cheating. Kudos to you for offering various ways of reaching your students.
I agree with you that cheating of any sort in any environment should be discouraged. Cheating online is no different than cheating in a brick and mortar classroom. My students know right up front that they have to pass a national exam at the end of their program. I frequently emphasize that in order to do so they must learn and retain the material.
I have used the phrase "you are only cheating yourself" many times. My students take a "Law and Ethics: course, which gives me many opportunities to discuss doing the right thing because it's the right thing...period. They know that when they get out in the field I won't be there to monitor their clinc activities so I try to foster a desire to be ethical and honest in ALL their endeavors.
Technology only enables students to find ways around the discipline of learning in different ways than an on-ground course. The key is to instill values in our students so that they resist the temptation to cheat. We should be concerned but should also recognize that this is a problem that affects humankind regardless of whether they are a student or a CEO or politician.
There are many technology programs out there to help with plagarism. There will always be students who will push the limit on everything.
I have noticed that a big problem with online teaching in the cheating facet is plagarism. There is technology to help thwart that, however I think the students can get around the software checks. You do have to use a qualitative approach to ensuring the students will engage and learn rather than figure out how to cheat.
Should there be some sort of contract at the beginning of an online course that the student signs stating they have integrity not to cheat?
Cheating should be considered an often occurrence in an online class as opposed to the traditional classroom. In an online course, instructors can not walk around and catch the students who may be cheating. Instructors have to assume that the students have enough integrity not to cheat. The instructor should also make it known at the beginning of the course the consequences of cheating. The student should also be made familiar to the university policies on cheating. There have been technological advancements in an online course that has made cheating more of a penalty i.e. turnitin.com. All we can do as online instructors is to follow the policies and hope that students are in the course to learn and not in the course just to get by. I have many occasions where a student submitted a written assignments and I went to the document properties and found out that it was created by another student. I let the students know about my investigation and I usually do not get a conflict of opinions from the students. They knew they were caught red handed.
What are some ways that we catch students cheating in an online course?
I agree, we should be concerned about the cheating manner used in an online environment, because it's not supposed to be allowed anywhere; online or offline.
I have experienced quizzes that have a pool of questions from which the quiz questions are randomly chosen so even if students attempt to take it together, they won't be presented with the same questions, or at least not in the saem order. They can still help each other with the answers, I suppose, but at least not be able to go through the quiz/test together question by question. I think placing time limits also helps with cheating as students cannot colaborate or work with other students as much if they risk running out of time.
There is a lot of technology out there that enhances cheating opportunities; however, there are ways to curve the opportunity as well.
I think it depends on the structure of the classwork and the locations of the students. When I think of cheating, it usually involves the participating of another student in some way. In osme online courses, direct contact is limited and may limit cheating opportunities. that isn't true of all courses as the students may share in-seat classes and could find opportunities to share information and resources inappropriately. And just becuase students may cheat in an in-seat environment doesn't mean we turn our head to that possibiliby online. Assignments and testing should be structured to make ir more difficult to cheat.
I don't agree. We should use Turn-It In to reduce the chance of plagiarism. Students should be held accountable in an online environment as well as in a ground-based class.
We can also reduce the chance of cheating by creating assignments that are individualized for the class. Example: In Small Business Management, my students have to create a business plan. The answers to various assignments are specific to their individual businesses. It helps eliminate people copying others posts in the discussion forums.
thank you....I do think it is important to state right up front to the students to do their own work.
The opportunities for cheating exist, but I always try to instill ethics in my students at the very beginning of class. I go over the school policies on cheating, and I explain some basic ethics concepts. I tell students that they are preparing for a career in which ethics will be an important part, so start the good practices now.
Preventing cheating by making students aware up front helps, I think. I point out that simple mistkaes like improper citation of references in a term paper could create an appearance of cheating.
oh so true....technology is going to continue to progress.
As technology advances so do our challenges as online instructors! one of them being how to avoid or minimize the effects of cheating in an online environment. We should be one step ahead and think out of the box for evaluation and grading!
A small weightage should be given to the online final paper, other weighted components being participation, project work, discussion and others which can be monitored from time to time.
We can set the paper to be open book, fixed time, displaying only one question at a time. So only the student who has read the material and knows where to find the answer has an advantage. As technology progresses we can hopefully identify the person logged in and taking the exam (biometrics or web cam matching etc)
