Academic Integrity in Online Courses

[Engineer13]

We're reading a lot about the possibly having to move classes from face-to-face to online because of the Coronavirus. I realize that for a lot of online classes, there are safeguards to prevent plagiarism, but if a class is based heavily on in-class tests and a final exam, how do we ensure that no cheating occurs?  Or is it necessary to completely change the grading policies?  Thanks in advance for your suggestions.  I hope I don't have to convert any classes this semester, but I think it's worth planning ahead.

[Aster]

Most LMS systems offer these "basic" options for online assessments.

1. Randomizing question order
2. Randomizing answer orders
3. Displaying only one question at a time on the screen
4. Setting timers on individual questions
5. Setting timers on assessments

If your assessments incorporate essay and/or other writing assignments, those can be submitted to a plagiarism/copying program. Most universities pay for this service. The programs work quite well in flagging copy/pasting from the internet and from other students.

There may also be more advanced "proctoring" systems available that use webcams to visually monitor a student's immediate environment for anomalous behavior, but I've not used them and don't know the specifics.

[wwwdotcom]

In addition to Aster's list, here are measures.  Some will depend on your LMS capabilities.

1. Generating a large question pool
2. Using lock down browsers so that the screen cannot be changed during exams (no switching to other tabs/windows)
3. Requiring passwords to open exams
4. Using randomized question groups

[spork]

Regarding #4 from Aster: if these are fairly easy multiple choice questions (i.e., no need for complex calculations), set the time limit to only 1-2 minutes per question.

Something that might deter cheating: a short answer question that asks each student to input his/her student ID number. Wrong number = zero on the exam, or at least further investigation if maybe a number was typed incorrectly. However this would involve creating a list of student ID numbers and matching the responses to the list.

[mythbuster]

We use the proctoring service Examity.

[clean]

how do we ensure that no cheating occurs?

We too use Examity. I use the highest level of security which includes a live proctor and recorded sessions. 
The computers are monitored. IF another webpage is opened, they see it and stop the exam.  IF someone comes in the room or picks up a phone or other device, they are stopped. 
They watch the students, and IF they are seen with wandering eyes, or they are not looking at the screen, they ask the students to scan the room again (pan the camera).

For that class, I use a MC test, but it would work with essay questions. 

[Engineer13]

Thanks for your responses.  I wasn't familiar with Examity; that seems like a good thing for our university to look into long-term.  MC tests and writing assignments seem to be straightforward to implement, but I'm still wondering how to give a problem-based test that requires students to show how they work out the solutions.  There are a few students I don't trust not to cheat even when we're in the classroom!

[Aster]

There is no real way to replace the direct supervision and control of a face-to-face classroom environment with a fully online model.

An online class is a distance education class. There are some things that one just cannot do at all with that format, or do very well.

The monitoring of assessments is one of these. Others have listed techniques that have shown to be helpful in remotely monitoring students and in reducing the ability to cheat. But even with those helpful software tools, you're still stuck with the distance education problem. You aren't where your students are, and your students are probably in a mostly uncontrolled environment.

Our very best online professor at Big Urban College used to require that all major exams be taken on campus at our controlled Testing Center. It was a superb strategy, viewed very favorably by our department and by our online learning team. But about five years ago our cheap and crappy college told her that this model was "unfair" to students (translation = we need to cut costs) and our super-professor was forced to deliver her exams fully online. Despite extensive use of proctoring software and other safeguards, she has racked up a long documentation trail of increased cheating and decreased performance. The decision by our college to scale back campus services and reduce professor choice left a really bad taste in her mouth, so much that she stopped even offering a few of her online courses altogether.

[mleok]

In addition to Examity, my institution also has a subscription to ProctorU.

[Hegemony]

I give unproctored, timed multiple-choice tests which are effectively open-book, but there is not enough time for them to search for answers, and anyway the questions are designed to require them to integrate knowledge, so there's no one spot they could go to to find the answer. They're also randomly chosen from a test bank and all that. All I can say is that if my students were cheating, I would expect them to do better on the tests. Their generally mediocre performance suggests to me that in fact they aren't cheating, or aren't cheating in any way that helps them.

[notmycircus]

Years ago, a graduate student commented that she needed to get home to complete her husband's paper for his online Master's degree.  I learned then that you can never know who actually did the work.

[Aster]

I give unproctored, timed multiple-choice tests which are effectively open-book, but there is not enough time for them to search for answers, and anyway the questions are designed to require them to integrate knowledge, so there's no one spot they could go to to find the answer.

Yes, I do something similar with pre-tests. It takes a lot of work to craft those sorts of assessment questions, so I reuse them. Students do not get access to review completed pre-tests, to slow down eventual theft and online distribution of the assessment questions. They can come in during office hours to look over the online pre-tests if they want, but almost nobody chooses to do that.

The overall model seems to work very well in keeping cheating down. Virtually no one ever aces these pre-tests, and few people even make B's.

[Hegemony]

I figure if someone else is doing the whole class for the student, they still have to learn the subject pretty deeply to do well on the exams. So at least someone is learning the subject!

[FishProf]

STEM field here - I do blended courses, with f2f labs, lab finals, and (often, but not always) f2f written finals.  They MUST pass the finals to pass the course so getting someone else to do all the work up to that point is very effectively self-defeating.

That is not to say that no one has tried. 

It is to say no one has succeeded.