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Promoting Integrity in an Online Learning Environment

Types of cheating

When students complete assessments online, they don’t necessarily cheat more than they would in the classroom. Instead, when they do cheat in online environments, they engage in particular types of cheating:

  • Unauthorized materials. For tests, this includes: the use of crib notes; sharing answers with other students; accessing answers online. For assignments, this includes: the use of note-sharing sites such as CourseHero; the use of paraphrasing tools.
  • Unauthorized 3rd parties. This includes having someone else complete their tests (impersonation) or having a 3rd party complete their assignments (contract cheating).

To prevent these types of cheating, there are some specific things faculty can do:

In an online environment, assume every test is an open-book test. To that end:

  • Consider the use of online exam proctoring tools in SLATE including Respondus Monitor and Respondus Lock Down Browswer
  • Avoid multiple-choice questions that involve lower-order skills; students can easily look up/share the answers
    1. Instead, if you want to use multiple-choice, ask students to provide an explanation for each of their answers, which helps to deter cheating and also allows students to practice metacognitive skills (Allanson & Notar, 2019)
  • Create a question pool for online tests where students receive a random sample of questions. See SLATE help for Randomizing Questions
  • Display questions one at a time
  • Set time limits for test completion, but take into consideration that students may experience anxiety if time limits are too tight
  • Limit automatic feedback and only post answers after all students have completed the test
  • Create a practice test in the same format to help students prepare beforehand
  • Consider making tests collaborative when possible

As well, provide explicit information on what is acceptable and what is not regarding: tools and resources; collaboration, and the use of note-sharing sites.

For assistance with creating assessments, review the resources and advice on Sheridan’s Teaching and Learning Continuity Kit: Assessments

  • Use the Respondus feature in SLATE, and ask students to show their OneCard (or other government ID) to reduce instances of impersonation by using Respondus Monitor online proctoring tool
  • Get to know your students’ writing through: a diagnostic assessment at the beginning of the term; formative assessments and through discussion board postings. If contract cheating is suspected, compare previous work to the work submitted
  • For assignments, ask students to draw on personal experience to answer reflective questions
  • Ask students to make connections between your course and current events, trends, or research that occurs within the confines of the particular semester (Lang, 2013)
  • Ask students to make connections between the content in your course and the content in others (Lang, 2013)
  • Consider using Virtual Classroom or Kaltura to facilitate oral presentations or to have students explain their work
  • Try to use alternative assessments where possible. Examples include: case studies, annotated bibliographies, blogs, infographics, etc. For suggestions, please see Sheridan’s resources for transitioning from F2F to online, or Ryerson University’s Best Practices in Alternative Assessments

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