How to overcome Cheating in Online Courses
The ease of cheating in online courses varies by the institution and class, experts say.
Instructors will rattle off a number of reasons why online students should think twice about cheating: they learn less, they cheapen their documentation and in some cases, they even get caught.
Still, the note falls on deaf ears.
“A lot of people cheat in online courses,” says David Pritchard, a physics professor at MIT who has studied academic dishonesty. “There are only some people who cheat a lot.”
Online students are not more likely to violate rules than their on-campus equivalents, says Bernard Bull of Concordia University Wisconsin, who has studied cheating in online classes at two liberal arts colleges. Among those who admitted to cheating, about 40% reported doing so in online quizzes, says Bull, who serves as assistant vice president of academics. About 13% reported cheating on papers and...