Student Equity: Discouraging Cheating in Online Courses

Abstract

As online programs at conventional universities continue to expand, administrators and faculty face new challenges. Academic dishonesty is nothing new, but an online testing environment requires different strategies and tactics from what we have had to consider in the past. Our university has recently adapted successful face-toface programs in financial management, both graduate and undergraduate, for delivery in a fully-online format. This paper discusses our experiences moving to a new environment, the challenges of student attempts to cheat and plagiarize, and techniques that we have found to prevent both cheating on high-stakes assessments and plagiarism.We present a number of essential ideas for creating an awareness of an honesty culture among both students and faculty, and we stress that the most important aspect of any campaign against academic dishonesty is prevention. Keywords: academic integrity, academic dishonesty, cheating, plagiarism, online assessment, high-stakes assessment