In reality, if someone wants to circumvent the online environment to cheat, it would indeed be easy to do. So if Joe Smith solicits or gets Bill Brown to complete all of his online assignments there really isn't a way to know or detect that.
Our institution subscribes to Turnitin plagiary software which is an excellent tool to ascertain "original" vs. "copied or plagiarized" work.
Until and unless there are additional safeguards created utilizing fingerprint or retina scan technology or similar facial imaging capture tied to a session/pc/keyboard interface, I believe we need to rely on the principle of academic honesty.
It's not a perfect system, nor is it a perfect world, but hopefully honesty will enter into the equation as opposed to surrogate students performing classroom participation and/or submissions on behalf of another.
Presuming this becomes a problem of some magnitude, I am sure some enterprising company or entity will create solutions to solve it technically.
I agree that the more we create assignments that are specific to the student and the course being taught, the chances of cheating are reduced. Certainly having students analyze the data that they generated is a great way to do that.
Programs like Turnitin are a big help. This program will point out similarities with information in a very large data base. Where it can get a little difficult is when a student cites their own work. Technically, they should have the right to use their own intellectual property. In order to determine whether or not a student's submission with a high similarity rating is their own is sometimes difficult to do. Often it requires the instructor pursuing permission to view the original paper and that may take considerable effort. Nevertheless, programs like Turnitin are a big help.
However, my favorite way to ensure original work is to give assignments that require analysis and processing of data. Lab simulations lend themselves to this kind of analysis. Since each student is working with a unique set of data (normally generated by them in the course of the lab), they must understand the concepts to successfully complete the work. Since understanding is one of our key goals, this kind of testing is very powerful.
I am intrigued by your comment "It is very easy to catch cheaters if your school really wants them caught." Can you elaborate a little more on that?
Great ideas John. Thank you for sharing.
Use the many tools available, i.e. Turnitin. There are other tell tale signs such as writing above their level, sudden shifts in tone/mechanics, writing that is too good to be true. It is very easy to catch cheaters if you school really wants them caught.
I also have used Google as a quick acid test and have found a few plagiarized papers that way. As everyone has mentioned Turnitin.com. I used to work on a campus and saw students attempting to cheat on their online classes in computer labs. It is wise to monitor that area so there isn't an opportunity to cheat. Also students can buy answer keys online these days so monitoring for answers to questions that look too perfect or just like your answer key can help you find cheaters.
Thanks for sharing your experience with a student cheating. I like your approach of simply asking the tough questions to try and get the answer.
Dr. Ernst,
In a way, instructors will never 100% know who is completing work on the other end of the computer. I use a variety of methods in each class because you can really get a feel for a student's style. I look for consistency. Do test scores reflect their writing? Are emails, posts, replies, discussions, and papers all in the same tone and style? I had a student that typed flawless papers but could not write an email. I addressed this with her and simply asked her why there was such a difference between the two. She finally admitted that she had "help" with her papers but she wouldn't do that again.
Trisha
You make some great suggestions Kim. I had never thought about using Google. That is easy to do. Thanks for sharing your ideas and thoughts.
Dr. Ernst
This can be very difficult to combat. I oversee the Accounting and Finance area and have caught online students cheating.
We normally research the issue as well as send them our course policy information and, of course, the student will receive a zero for that assignment.
Once the research is complete and have found that a student cheats I know call each student and address the issue.
I have had good luck and each student has been forthcoming and normally is a personal issue that required them to cheat and stated that either a friend completed the assignment or they bought an answer key online.
Turnitin is a great online tool to check for Plagiarism and also just copying and pasting a paragraph and/or sentence in Google helps find results as well.
Kim
Great tips Robin. Thanks for sharing with the group!
Its a challenge to keep students from cheating in an online class.
An instructor can engage students in the discussion room by requiring some sort of reference to their answer, even if its just a page number from their book or a URL from a site.
Next in the discussion room I always ask followup questions.
Instructors can also use turnitin.com for paper or document verification.
Another way is to require submissions of work be sent as a word document. Once received properties can be checked to see the person and date it was originated.
Terrific suggestion David. You are correct that there are many technology tools that can aid us in identifying cheating.
Yes, Jessica does make a good point. I agree that watching for differences between the way a student writes their assignments is one way of identifying cheating. Of course, that is true for residential and online courses!
Well said Patrick. Thanks for sharing.
With the proliferation of tools such as Skype, I wonder if there is not some minimal level of "face-to-face" interaction on-line instructors could achieve that could address this (for example the wife completing the masters program for her husband)? What about a phone call one time in a course to assess how the student is doing? If the male voice cannot speak to the course content, you know you have an issue.
I like Jessica's idea about watching for the "tone" of her students' work. I have seen significant differences in the style/quality of writing in different assignments submitted that led me to question the students work.
I don't believe you can prevent all instances of cheating when it comes to an online environment. However, that doesn't mean that we do not have a responsibility to be diligent in our efforts to combat the issue. As others here have suggested, a singular approach isn't going to be effective. Fortunately, we have a number of different means of communicating with our students (assignments/quizzes/forum posts/chat/telephone) that permit us to assess their comprehension under different circumstances. If a student submits a beautifully written paper, yet has poorly constructed forum posts and poor grades of her exam, my red flag is definitely going to be raised.
Unless you watch your students all the time, it is probably hard to be 100% sure in a residential class as well. Thanks for your comments Steven.
