Impeding Students' Efforts to Cheat in Online Classes

This paper identifies several methods a student could use to cheat while enrolled in an online course. Problems encountered in conducting an online course and in administering an online exam involve: (1) identifying the test taker, (2) preventing the theft of the exam, (3) combating the unauthorized use of textbooks and/or notes, (4) preparing an online exam and exam setup, (5) realizing a student may have access to a test bank, (6) preventing the use of cell phones, hand-held calculators, and/or Bluetooth devices, (7) limiting access to other individuals during the exam time, (8) ensuring a student is using a computer with adequate uploading and downloading capabilities, (9) identifying intentional computer crashes, and (10) noting the different methods of proctoring exams. The authors are full-time educators but are not primarily online teachers; however, they regularly teach one or more courses either in-load or as an over-load. This paper draws on the authors' experiences and efforts to teach online at both the lower and upper division undergraduate levels, as well as, the graduate level with efforts to give a student a comparable experience to a live classroom. The authors utilize Blackboard as their university's uniform course platform and refer to Blackboard's available options to inhibit cheating which share common selections with most online course platforms. An attempt is being made with this paper to help other instructors benefit from the authors' mistakes and successes.