Dive Summary:
- With the growing presence of online education, safeguards against cheating are needed to validate exams and diplomas.
- Proctors for online exams can now monitor online students via webcam, keeping track of how often their eyes shift away from the screen or listening for a helper in the room, and additional technology allows proctors to remotely lock a student's browser to prevent Internet searches and analyze typing patterns.
- Cheating in online courses has become a larger concern due to the size and scale of MOOCs, but some students say there's no fail-safe way to prevent it, while recent studies have shown little difference in the number of students cheating in online and face-to-face courses.
From the article:
... Only with solid safeguards against cheating, experts say, can Internet universities show that their exams and diplomas are valid — that students haven't just Googled their way to an "A+" or gotten the right answers texted to their smartphones.
"I think it gives credibility to the entire system, to the institution and to online education in general," said Clay, 31, who is studying accounting at Western Governors University, a nonprofit institution that enrolls many working adults like her. ...