Instructors of online courses have taken precautions against cheating and fraud in make sure students are not misrepresenting themselves, Thomas Noyes, Oceanography instructor said.
Online classes are convenient to students with busy lives who cannot attend school at a required time, Noyes said.
This raises the 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, as well as also weekly progress reports to see what the students are doing, Noyes said.
Online classes are managed through a Web site which allows students and instructors to interact through discussions, chats, and forums, Noyes said.
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 of the 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 someone 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 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.
Noyes understands that students may talk when taking tests, so he allows students to cooperate during their tests.
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 the class, Noyes said.
“Taking online classes may seem easier, but without self discipline and good study habits, a student may get low scores and just drop the class,” Noyes said. There has been discussion of possibly requiring online students to each have webcams, Noyes said.
This would provide physical evidence of the students’ participation.
“It would be hard to manage a whole class via webcam,” Minion said. “it is a good idea, but this webcam would defeat the purpose of an online class.”