Cheating in online exams!

How much of a problem is cheating in virtual, online and technology mediated learning environments?  From my perspective, there can be academic dishonesty in a live class with a proctor present.  I have caught students cheating on exams in my live classroom.  I have been told after exams that certain students were cheating that I didn’t catch.  I cannot penalize a student who I didn’t observe cheating; I can only watch that student more closely if there is another exam.  My point is that there is probably cheating that I don’t catch in my live classroom.  The potential for cheating is significantly greater when there is not a “live” proctor.  We must also take into consideration that access to an online class also grants access to the internet.  The World Wide Web grants access to tremendous amounts of information on almost any subject in less than a second.  These factors may increase the frequency of cheating.

The article Online exams and cheating: an empirical analysis of business students’ views is a study on the matter.  The research by the authors demonstrates that unless there is a clear online test taking policy, students will be tempted to cheat on online exams.  “Respondents felt quite liberal in their views of potentially “cheating” behaviors when there was no test taking policy set by the course instructor.

This segues into mechanisms that can be put in place to mitigate cheating.  The Online exams and cheating article specifically states that academic standards must be clearly spelled out.  Honor codes must be posted in print form, on websites and discussed in class.  Students must be aware of disciplinary actions due to academic dishonesty. 

Other mechanisms can be put in place to lessen cheating.  The video with the exam cops gives tips on reducing the possibility of cheating in online exams.  Some of the suggestions are specifically geared towards the Angel software used at their institution, but the main ideas can be implemented in any online platform.  One suggestion is that time limits are enforced in online exams.  A timer being set once the student begins the exam will cut down on cheating in many ways.  There should be a fair amount of time given to answer each question, so the student does not have time to “Google” the questions.  The timer must keep running, even if the student logs out or clicks save.  When the timer is up, the test should automatically be submitted.  Another suggestion is an online proctor that ensures that the test is taken in one sitting.  One suggestion that I have used is delivering slightly different exams to different students.  One way is to randomize the questions and multiple choice answers.  Moodle allowed me to do this effectively in my experience.  Another way is to draw from larger question bank.  For example, I have 30 questions relevant to the learning with similar degrees of difficulty.  The testing mechanism can be programmed to choose 20 random questions from the bank for different students.  In this situation, there will be different questions and answers to draw from – besides random order.  This will assist in mitigating online cheating.  The last suggestion comes from one of the advantages for instructors.  The program will mark the test automatically.  But it is important that a question and answer key do NOT appear with the automated score.  This way, students cannot pass questions and answers to their peers.

Assessment vs Evaluation

 

I have been improperly using Assessment and Evaluation interchangeably in previous submissions.  I was treating them like synonyms.  After reading the documents in this module I have realized that they are not the same thing.  To oversimplify the differences: assessment is formative and evaluation is summative.   Formative assessments are used to improve the ongoing process of learning.  Summative evaluations are used to gauge the final results of the learning.

The differences between assessment and evaluation are further broken down in these documents.  The dimensions of differences between assessment and evaluation include: timing, focus of measurement, relationship between teacher and student, the use of the findings, the modifiability of criteria, and standards of measurement.  The timing element was discussed before.  The formative assessment is done during the process of learning. The timing of a summative evaluation is at the end of the learning or the final exam.  Some other qualities of assessment and evaluation in relation to the dimensions of differences include the process oriented nature of assessment and the product oriented nature of evaluation.  This is in respect to the focus of measurement dimension.  In other words, the focus of measurement in assessment is in the process of learning.  The focus of measurement for evaluation would be the final exam grade, which is a final product of the learning.  Therefore, assessments are flexible and open to modification within the learning process.  Evaluations are fixed because they document achievement in relation to the learning objectives.  These qualities relate to the modifiability of criteria.

            Both assessment and evaluation are needed for a functional educational system.  Assessment is needed to document the important criteria within the learning process.  Evaluation is necessary to demonstrate the results of the learning.  The documentary, Waiting for Superman bases its judgements and suggestions for improvement of the American educational system on statistics and data.  Much of the statistics used in proving their thesis were culled from data of summative evaluations.  The success and failure of public schools can be determined by the results of summative testing.  The results of the summative evaluations point back to the formative process of learning.  In order to raise the scores of summative evaluations, more attention and skill must be applied to the formative process of learning.  Obviously, if a student is noticed to not understand a necessary concept during the learning process through formative assessment, more attention can be paid in supporting the student.  This should increase the students chances of not falling behind and scoring higher on a summative evaluation.Teachers and administrators have to be more careful and skillful in using formative assessments in order to bring up the test scores used as summative evaluations – which end up being summative statistics for schools, school districts, states and nationwide. 

            When I was teaching at a higher learning institution, results were very important.  My success as a professor information literacy was based mainly on the achievements of my students on certain standards across the curriculum.  Therefore, if the students did well this reflected positively upon me.  If I were to become a classroom professor again I would give more attention to formative assessment in the learning process.  This would ensure that less students fall behind and that the students can score as high as possible on their summative exams - which is how I was being evaluated. 

Assessment in the 21st century

What common threads in the 21^st century skills are relevant to you, your class, school, district or group?

It seems that the common threads are thinking, acting, and living.  This is being written on July 8^th, 2016, living skills is very relevant to current events in relation to me, my class, my school, district and group.  The living skills I am referring to from the Greenstein book are “Global responsibility and citizenship; and Global understanding.”  I am writing this with the violence between citizens and police officers in mind – besides all of the other senseless violent acts in the recent past.  Yes, critical thinking, problem solving, digital and technological literacy are important 21^st century skills; but learning to live tolerantly and peacefully in this diverse global melting pot seems to be the most important thing in my mind.  I believe that the other 2 general skills, thinking and acting, are going to be integral to the living skill that is so much needed today.  This will take education and information in all the skills.

How can you fit content into the context of 21^st century skills?  Think of some examples.

Learning content in my discipline, librarianship, is easy to fit into the context of 21^st century skills.  Digital libraries and online databases make accessing information easy.  But it also makes finding the appropriate information more difficult.  With so much information at the touch of a fingertip we need to evaluate the information that we access.  This will take critical thinking skills.  Librarianship involves applying critical thinking skills to problem solving.  This will also involve technological and digital literacy to access this information.  All this information will allow students to become better global citizens.

Do you think some content areas have stronger links to 21^st century skills than others? Explain how and why.

I think that they are all interconnected, but they are built in order from thinking, to acting and finally to living.  As I stated in the first prompt, I believe that the living skills are most necessary at a societal level. These other skills help build up the global citizenship and social responsibility skills necessary to live in the 21^st century.  Like I stated in the previous question, digital and technological literacy are integral in participating in the 21^st century.  It seems to me that the younger students that are growing up in this technological age are adept already in these necessary literacies.  Some exceptions include those who do not have internet access.

If we can no longer teach all the content, what are your priorities for adjusting teaching and learning? How will you do that?

I hope I am not reading this question wrong but I think that it is obvious that you cannot teach all the content written in the book about 21^st century skills in one course.  Hopefully the course being taught has 21^st century skills in order to be relevant to the modern age.  In my case, library skills and information literacy contain some of the content of 21^st century skills.  The priorities are all activities related to information.  That includes formation of thesis statements, accessing information (digital and print), evaluating information, organizing information, and making proper citations to give proper credit to the authors.