Cheating: a chink in our armour?
Check out this site called ‘We Take Your Class’: http://www.wetakeyourclass.com. The description of this site reads:
When you are in a serious time crunch, or working full time the last thing you want to do when you get home is deal with your online class work for a class you have no interest in. We get that. We are based in the United States and we can relate to what you are going through. You will not find better customer service and guaranteed grades or your money back with any other company. We know all of the online learning platforms in and out. Your class will be on cruise control the moment you sign up with us and if you have any questions or concerns we can be reached anytime. We specialise in math, business or science classes, but we also offer assistance in a wide variety of other subjects.
Similar sites exist, including, http://www.boostmygrade.com, https://www.noneedtostudy.com/myclass/take-online/, http://acemyassignment.com and http://onlineclasstutors.com/take-my-class-for-me/. This list is by no means exhaustive. The growth of the online education market have spun off another, more surreptitious market – one that goes beyond the paper-writing services long available to less than honest students in the offline world. These sites all offer to take a student’s entire online class for them, handling assignments, quizzes, and tests, for a fee. They are all legal (or appear so) and most promise at least a B in the course. Some are scams (see, for example, http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/wetakeyourclasscom-wetakeyourclass-paul-wakefield/internet/wetakeyourclasscom-wetakeyourclass-paul-wakefield-wetakeyourclasscomwetakeyourclass-S-916110), but many are not, and with prices ranging from a mere $95 (for an essay) to 1000$ (for a full introductory microeconomics class), the not-so-honest student might find someone who can take a course for him/her, or complete an assignment. Moreover, cheating is nearly impossible to prevent when teaching an online course if a student is committed to cheating. So despite our genuine efforts to control cheating, we do have a problem, and we must find ways to solve it, or at least curtail it.
How can cheating be stopped? Here are my arguments which find support in the extant literature about cheating and online education. First, as I argued elsewhere in this course, plagiarism is not unique to the online world (as Watson and Sottile, 2010 and ION's Strategies to Minimize Cheating Online webpage also note). It also exists in the face-to-face dimension, and indeed, this dimension has resorted to online tools to eliminate part of this problem (through plagiarism-detection software, such as Turnitin). Second, we must move away from prevention of cheating, which no technology or strategy will ever be able to accomplish, face-to-face or online, and toward deterrence and vigilance’. In the same vein, Jocoy and DiBiase, (2015), argue for constant ‘systematic detection and vigilant enforcement’ in online learning. Third, I argue for a move away from the traditional assessment paradigm, in which, assessment is often synonymous with summative grading and the measurement of acquired knowledge. It is easier to cheat a quiz, or a final essay, than to take an active part in a synchronous online discussion through Blackboard Collaborate! Therefore, we should not just dump in information at students so someone can come in and take a couple of quizzes and they’re done. Fourth, do not distinguish between assessment and learning. Do not create separate assessment tasks. Create learning experiences through authentic assessment efforts (see Foothill College's Prevent Cheating webpage) involving collaborative work, camaraderie between participants, scaffolding, building and constantly developing one’s online persona (for example, I can now easily recognize Thomas’s work, even if he decides not to sign it) and, democratic communication between all learning members. Stöckelová and Virtová's (2015) case study confirms that this type of pedagogy ‘can foster collaboration and a sense of mutuality among students, trigger institutional reflexivity and generate a platform for the collective production of knowledge lacking in curricula, it can also perpetuate institutional deficiencies by compensating for them, often in undesirable ways such as cheating and plagiarism’.
Tilsley (2012) makes a similar argument. She notes that a ‘verification plan’ must involve pedagogy, not technology, and this fear of cheating should not lead to the ‘over-regulation’ of the online learning dimension as it might scare away the adult population that needs it most – people with family and job responsibilities who cannot follow campus-based higher education. She also notes that when a course requires constant interaction, collaborative work and many assignments, it will increase the expenses to the cheating student, making the service financially prohibitive. Technically, it will also present a problem to the cheaters since the IP address can easily unmask the cheating service (which is often maintained by one individual who has only one IP address). So, designing a course that precludes cheating might require thinking creatively and breaking away from simply uploading lecture videos and administering quizzes.
Finally, I must stress that we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Online education is a good thing, despite the cheating fears. I did a Postgraduate Certificate Course in Research Training, a Master’s Degree in e-Learning with the University of Hull (UK), a couple of MOOCs, and this MVCR course with the University of Illinois, completely online. I also completed the greater part of my PhD through online communication with my supervisors in the University of Hull (with only occasional visits to the host University UK for supervisory meetings and the final viva). I did all this while maintaining my full-time job. I am also currently involved in work at National and European level to create a working accreditation system (which must address the cheating issue) for higher education experience gained through open learning sources (including MOOCs) which are increasingly gaining value at the international labour market and educational arena.
References
Jocoy, C. L., & DiBiase, D. (2006). Plagiarism by adult learners online: A case study in detection and remediation. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).
Stöckelová, T. and Virtová, T. (2015), A tool for learning or a tool for cheating? The many-sided effects of a participatory student website in mass higher education. British Journal of Educational Technology. 46: 597–607.
Tilsely, A. (2012), Paying for an A. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/21/sites-offering-take-courses-fee-pose-risk-online-ed [accessed on 16 July 2015].
Watson, G. and Sottile, J. (2010), Cheating in the Digital Age: Do Students Cheat More in Online Courses? Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration. Volume XIII, Number I, Spring 2010. University of West Georgia, Distance Education Center. Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring131/watson131.html [accessed 16 July 2015]
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