How To Avoid Cheating In Online Exams
Cheating during online exams is a serious threat to both educators and their students, compromising exam integrity and leading to inaccurate assessments of learning progress.
There are various methods available to online exam takers to combat cheating in exams, including setting time limits to prevent backtracking and making questions hard for others to share.
1. Limit the number of questions
Online cheating has become a pervasive problem in higher education, especially as more learning takes place online. Students find creative ways to bypass proctored testing environments by writing mathematical formulae on their palms or searching their phones for answers – not only is this unfair to honest students but it can have serious repercussions for your institution’s academic integrity reputation.
At Blackboard exams, there are some practical steps that you can take to reduce cheating in online exams. One way is limiting the number of questions in each test; this makes it harder for students to cheat by looking at answers of peers in the same room. Another strategy is using its “shuffle questions” feature so no student sees identical questions at once.
As with textbooks, publisher test banks that accompany your course are best avoided to reduce cheating during exams. Instead, try to develop your own questions that are specific and tailored specifically to the topic of your course.
Voice detection software that recognizes when students say, “Hey Siri” or “OK Google,” which could catch them trying to cheat an online test can also be effective; however, its implementation may prove challenging due to high numbers of students and costly hardware requirements. There are other tools such as browser locks which temporarily lock a student out when they attempt to navigate away from an exam website or use shortcuts or keystrokes during testing sessions in order to prevent cheating during exams.
2. Limit the time allowed
Online exams have become an increasingly common feature, and students have numerous methods available to them for cheating during them. One such way is gaining early access to test questions. They then copy and paste answers from previous exams into their exam paper. Educational institutions may limit the length of an online examination session in order to prevent students from using outside materials or searching online for leaked questions as an attempt at cheating.
Many students attempt to buy more time for cheating by creating disruptions and making excuses during online exams. For instance, they might report issues with the system or proctoring software so as to postpone its commencement; or request unscheduled toilet breaks or devices being disconnected unexpectedly in order to gain extra time. As these strategies can be hard to detect, it’s crucial that when creating online exams these issues are considered carefully and considered.
Collaborative forms of cheating among students include whispering, foot-tapping, or other suspicious behavior; more sophisticated forms include submitting corrupted answer files or soliciting assistance from another colleague (Chirumamilla & Sindre, 2019).
To combat such forms of cheating, an effective online exam must include voice detection features which enable the proctor to listen in on students during an examination. This feature allows proctors to listen in on students using smartphones to search the web for cheating resources or converse in chat with classmates during a test, flag any suspicious behaviors and notify live proctors instantly about possible violations.
3. Require students to sign an academic integrity contract
Establishing an agreement between students and instructors prior to an online exam can serve as a powerful deterrent against cheating, providing instructors with the right to report those who breach it, while setting expectations regarding student behavior during assessments. Furthermore, adding an academic integrity policy into course syllabi may serve as an additional deterrent; especially if an institution offers anti-cheating campaigns designed to communicate consequences of cheating with its students.
To minimize cheating opportunities, set your test so that only one question appears on-screen at a time. This will prevent students from scanning questions in advance or opening multiple tabs to research answers prior to appearing on-screen. Likewise, consider disabling the backtracking feature so students must answer each question definitively rather than returning later for answers they already discovered.
Not only should your course limit the number of questions and disallow collaboration and accessing of outside resources, but it is equally essential to foster an academic integrity culture. This involves making clear that any forms of cheating is prohibited and could negatively impact student grades; you should also remind students about its significance by sharing videos or materials about this subject matter.
Students should be encouraged to seek assistance from official university services (AMS tutoring, the Student Learning Hub at UBC Vancouver and department-specific help centres) rather than private or unofficial ones not associated with the university; this can help reduce anxiety and stress that has been shown as motivators for some students to cheat on exams.
4. Require students to register for the exam
Online exams provide great flexibility for students, yet present unique challenges when it comes to cheating. No matter what preventive measures are put into place against cheating, some students will always attempt to bend the rules – be it using prohibited materials, collaborating with peers during an exam, or looking up answers online; cheating occurs in many forms and is compounded when online exams replace traditional paper-and-pencil tests in higher education.
One way to address these problems is registering students for exams, as this will help ensure only the correct student takes part and prevent any unauthorized collaboration between classmates or friends during testing. Another strategy for fighting cheating includes setting exams that prevent students from exiting early or submitting tests before time expires – this way cheaters won’t attempt to pass by falsifying technical issues and passing.
Finally, it is essential that each student be tested individually in a separate testing environment. This will prevent students from trying to pass off an exam multiple times by using different computers or sharing answers among themselves. Furthermore, it would be prudent for each student to have a unique password and username in order to access their examination, thus preventing others from sharing or trying to reuse an account that has already been taken.
Proctoring tools exist to assist with preventing cheating during online exams, including anti-SS and anti-RDC features. Unfortunately, however, these do not address the full extent of cheating as students can still utilize hardware or third-party software to share their screens during testing. A better solution would be utilizing an on-demand proctoring service like Honorlock that offers on-demand proctoring; students can schedule exams whenever it suits them best – even 2 am over Thanksgiving break!
5. Require students to log out of their accounts before the exam begins
Students taking online exams have access to numerous tools that make cheating easier than ever, including downloading and saving course material, working together in groups or pairs, using smartphones for screen sharing purposes, Google searches for questions etc. To safeguard student interests it is crucial that these exams include mechanisms designed to protect against this form of misconduct. Therefore it is crucial that cheat-proof exams be implemented.
Many colleges are making strides to combat cheating in online tests and exams, such as exams. One approach is providing practice exams or quizzes before actual exams to familiarize students with technology while providing a sense of what lies ahead; this can reduce anxiety and apprehension, both of which contribute to cheating behavior among students.
Limit the number of times students can take an online exam in order to prevent cheating; this will stop them from having someone else take it for them or sharing answers with one another. Furthermore, try not to use multiple-choice and true/false questions; rather include more open-ended ones that require detailed answers from you as this will prevent cheating in an exam setting.
Before the exam begins, it is also wise to require students to log out of their accounts. This will prevent them from sharing their screen with a friend or using software that captures and records it; and make it harder for students to scout out other examinees in the room and look at their answers.
While these methods can help prevent cheating in an online test, students still may find ways to bypass them. For instance, some may jot down mathematical formulae on their palms while taking the exam or use erasable markers to write on their screens – these strategies may be difficult to monitor so it is advisable to utilize proctoring software that uses voice detection and allows instructors to chat in real time during exams.