Campus Fraud Follow Up story

Following the campus fraud case, EC professors are already well prepared for the possibility of the event, Thomas Noyes, Oceanography instructor, said.

Online classes are attractive to students with busy lives and cannot attended school at a required time, Noyes said. This raises question as to if the student is who they say they are.

“In a sense, we can’t really know who it is,” Noyes said. “But we can tell the difference in plagiarism through each person’s unique writing style.”

In his online oceanography class, there is mandatory participation in the discussion groups, and also weekly progress reports to see what the students are doing, Noyes said.

Online classes are managed through a website which allows for students and instructors interact through discussions, chats, and forums, Noyes said. Examples of such websites are Etudes, and BlackBoard.

Classes set up in this active interaction style would require a student who would want to commit fraud, to hire a person to do all interaction for the class, Noyes said.

“If someone had your ID and your password onto the course management site, it could be quite possible for some one to pretend to be someone else,” Tammy Minion, 36, Fashion and Art major, said.

Of the three online classes she’s taken, most of them require a great deal of interaction for each student in discussions and also mandatory at home quizzes, Minion said.

“It is our strategy, as instructors, to accommodate the possible issues of fraud into our courses by making certain requirements,” Noyes said. For example, he understands that students, when taking the test, may talk with other students, so therefore he allows for students to work together.

By using questions which are in great detail and ask for students to elaborate on specific topics and provide independent thought, even if students were to commit fraud, unless they were actively participating in the class, they would not pass, Noyes said.

“Taking online classes may seem easier, but without the self discipline and good study habits, a student may get low scares and just drop the class,” Noyes said.

There has been discussion of possibly requiring online students to each have webcam’s, Noyes said. This would provide physical evidence of the students’ participation.

“It would be hard to manage a whole class via webcam,” Minion said. “And even if it is a good idea, this webcam would defeat the purpose of an online class where there is no mandatory meeting time.”

Many other colleges offer online classes as well, but with budget cuts, there are far fewer options, Minion said. The statistics of student success rates for online classes are unknown but offering more online classes may be a popular trend due to its convenience, Minion said.

“Maybe not for the major classes but for the general education classes which often get filled up the fastest,” Minion said, about possible addition of online classes.

Many varieties of online classes are offered here at El Camino College, and they are appropriate for the upper level students, Noyes said.

“Online classes are great for students who have real life reasons for why they cannot be in class every day,” Noyes said. “But just because the class is online does not mean it is easier.”