Thanks for your comments, Alysha. Cheating is still certainly a challenge in the online environment, yet, of course, there are ways other than exams to measure student performance, particularly utilizing the technological resources we may have; other assessments might include inidividual and team online presentations and reports, journals, etc. I particularly like the idea of the time limit to help curb turning to unauthorized resources.
Thanks again for your input,
Jay Hollowell
Guest Facilitator
EL101
I believe that we should still be concerned about online cheating but i am not sure how much control we have over the matter. Some stratagies to discourage cheating would be randomizing questions on exams and imposing a time limit. This makes it difficult to look up questions in a book or print copies of the test.
We should always be concerned about cheating. I think that some learners think it will be easier to cheat in the online environment, but in fact it is not. The temptation may be stronger, but most platforms include mechanisms to help faculty identify cheating. Cheating is a serious offense and should be treated the same in the online environment as in the on-ground environment.
I agree with most others that if a student wants to cheat , they will find a way regardless of the class format. Technology has given students endless opportunities to allow in class cheating- camera phones, texting etc. I saw on TV last week a story about students using water bottles on their desks to magnify answers for fellow students to see! Ingenuity is alive and well in todays classrooms.
That said, I think educators need to take every precaution to guard against cheating and be alert to the signs. Instructors need to respond appropriately when they suspect someone is cheating. Many times a friendly chat with a student,or even the whole class without direct accusations is enough to scare them into honesty. Sad but true-
Roy:
Your approach is a sound one. Due attention must be given to honest, sincere, and diligent students. If by chance you catch someone cheating, then you adopt the institution's policy cheating; otherwise it is not worth the effort to search out cheaters. The cheaters are the ones who lose out in the long-term. and in some cases they may even discern that you know that they are cheating.
Satrohan
That is a wise summary of where to place our efforts. I see cheating from time to time and address it as I can. I know our students get the best of me at times. I do not want to rob my good students of my best teaching efforts because I get too distracted by searching our potential cheaters.
Richard:
We can debate cheating from all angles. Moral standards, irrational mind, suspension from school etc. The bottom line is that if someone wants to cheat, we cannot stop them. We can penalize them if we find out. And there are certianly some very clever students whose intent may not be to cheat but to show that the assessment is not fool proof. Then there are groups of students who collaborate in deliberate cheating.
Allow me to share with you my experience with an open-book exam. It was for my first statistical analysis course in Graduate school. We were given six hours to complete that exam; and the option to return the next day for another six hours.
That exam was designed in such a manner that if a student did not complete the coruse work during the semester, having access to the textbook, and twelve hours would not do the trick.
Satrohan
I do not think that an assessment can be cheat proof. Assessments made by man can certinly be undone by man. The effort involved in the cheating, if difficult, can affect the moral compass and the cheating may not be worth the price of cheating. The use of available software to determine plagerism with its penalities for example. As a certified graphologist I am aware that there is great percentage of psychopaths (social to homicidal) who do not have a stable conscience and if given the opportunity will cheat. A clever facilitator will produce assessments that require a sophisticated process of cheating, more than is necessary for normal learning.
Sunny:
Your recommendation is a good one; however, in my opinion, its soundness must be judged by the age of the learners. Young learners will need the coaching. And I strongly support the notion of teaching children to think. It is the equivalent of taking the respopnsibility of providing fish to the helpless population of a remote village versus providing them with the tools with which to fish and teaching them how to use those tools so that they can become self-sufficient.
For older students we can be looking at the leading the horse to the water but not being able to make it drink. We can put controls in place; however, not all students will adhere to them. And there is not much we can do because we do not see them face-to-face.
Learners have to take responsibility for their learning; Instructors are there to guide and support; not to be chasing behind them to get their work done. Online courses are governed by some factors that are common to a traditional classroom environment----- duration, class size, student workload, instructor workload etc. The more an Instructor has to chase students down, the less time he or she will have to provide quality instruction and may end up working exhorbitant hours which may be prohibited in a unionized environment.
These are my thoughts, Sunny.
Richard:
This is a very interesting perspective on cheating. I am with you up to the point of designing assessment measures with the understanding that some learners will cheat. I would like to expand on your train of thought; so share with me how one goes about creating an assessment measure that makes the "learner's compass overide the need" to cheat.
I don't know if I am suggesting that we need to teach them to think or even hand hold them. I am suggesting that we have a certain responsibility as a learning institute to put controls in place. We cannot simply leave it on the student and let him/her determine what committment or effort level they want to put into their education. It defeats the purpose of enrolling with us. They are looking for guidance and paying for it and we should provide it to them.
Cheating is the same regardless of the environment, or class, or what you can get away with. Cheating is the effort of stealing information, or acolades, or anything not deserved. A good facilator is aware of the process of cheating and creates an assessment or assignment that is not cheat proof but assumes that the learners moral compass will overide the need to steal that which is not earned. People will steal or cheat regardless of location, their job, their home , or the classroom. The facilitator must take cheating into account in Face to Space as well.
Sunny:
Your position on the Subject reminds me of Lev Landa, and Ecucator who maintained that children must be taught to think. I suspect that he mentioned children and not students because the target behavior must be instilled at an early age.
Satrohan
Absolutely disagree. We should be very concerned however with the internet today, it is very hard to realize whether someone has an original thought or whether they copied it from some source. I realize that we have tools or software such as "turn it in" to catch plaigrism but if we cannot teach our students to think by themselves or have an original thought/concept than we are not doing our job as a learning institute.
Carol:
Many of us classify cheating as a breach od moral standards. Yes; some of us may have zero tolerance for cheating; however, i share the same opinion of some other participants in this Discussion Forum on the Subject; no matter what we do, some of them will cheat.
Satrohan
Mark:
This is a remarkable strategy. I don not know of many institutions who allow the freedom to do this. Many institutions transfer the on-the-ground grading policy to the online environment.
Satrohan
Nobody benefits from cheating. Yes - you may pass the course but in real life will it get you through? Will you really know the answer if asked outside the realm of class? Probably, not. Depending on the type of instuction - it may come down to whether or not it involves lives, human or animal. I'm not willing to accept cheating in any way, shape or form.
I have been in the teaching game for only six years and have discovered that no matter what I have done cheating is going to happen. I agee with all the post I have read on this forum. However, I measure that I have taken to try and curb some of the cheating is; at the beginning of each semester, I instruct the students that they can retake the quizes and exams has much as they like as long as they don't fall behind on the tempo of the class. I realize that this may put some extra labor on me, but they are paying to be taught and I figure that if they want a certian grade then they will earn it. I found out that this produces two results. 1. By retaking the exam or quiz, the student has to repeat the material again and 2. They get the grade they want.
MARk
Paula:
I am a somewhat strong disciplinarian. I support strong penalties for cheating.
You brought up an interesting situation----a student using the same term paper for two different classes. Do you think it would be a wise idea for Instructors who teach similar academic courses to compare their assignments to ensure that they do not support this kind of practice?
Satrohan
I agree with your comment on pursuing students who insist on cheating. If they would exert more of their effort on actually learning what is being taught in the class, they would find that they would get more out of it.
I too have had students use the same term paper for two different classes with different instructors, I guess thinking that we would not catch on or that we don't discuss students.
Cheating has been around a lot longer that I have been an instructor and will continue long after I am gone. The only way to deal with it is to penalize when you can and continue to stress the advantages to doing your own work.
