Designing and conducting student assessment
Topic: Teaching online
What to do you think...
Is the possibility of plagiarism increased or decreased in online assessment?
Read these opposing views:
“Ironically, a strong case can be made that it is actually harder to cheat online and that it is also easier to detect. In a traditional class, the instructor does not have the benefit of seeing ongoing written products from each student. A few intermittent written assignments do not provide the same level of insight into a student's writing style that one would find in an online class. This in depth knowledge of each student's capabilities makes it much easier to expose fraudulent work.” (p. 1 of 5) Heberling, M. (2002). Maintaining academic integrity in online education. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 5(1). Retrieved June 1, 2006 from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring51/heberling51.html*
“In summary, online assessment raises serious security issues. Many methods of cheating are facilitated, some quite new, and it is inevitable that cheating will increasingly be automated and distributed as software packages. While there are countermeasures, most are unsatisfactory in some way. For these reasons, online assessment in distance-learning programs should be done with caution until more progress is made on the technical development of countermeasures.” (p. 6 of 8) Rowe, N.C. (2004). Cheating in online student assessment: Beyond plagiarism. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 7(2). Retrieved June 1, 2006 from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer72/rowe72.html* |
Focus questions
- Discuss why you favour one of these views over the other, or why you have another view altogether about plagiarism in online assessment.
- Is designing out plagiarism in online assessment more of a technical design challenge or is it more of a pedagogical design challenge, in your view?
- In what circumstances would online assessment work with integrity, in your area of teaching? In what circumstances would it never work with integrity?
* Used with permission of the author.