As higher education is shifting to virtual teaching, examinations are increasingly conducted virtually, often proctored. Unfortunately, virtual proctored examinations--proctored remotely using technologies--can be prone to cheating. Some anti-cheating measures can be built into the virtual proctoring technologies, but cheating can still occur.…

Undergraduate first-year courses are often mandatory for students in a variety of majors and degrees. Many students view these core courses as of little interest and relevance, which is associated with lack of motivation for study and can lead to cheating. Contract cheating in text-based is difficult to detect and prove. Contract cheating in…

The problem of Computer Science students' cheating in their homework assignments so far has been handled mainly through administrative punishment of the cheaters. The success of such an approach depends to a large degree on the ability of the instructor to recognize the fact of cheating, which is a complicated task. With a large number of students…

We present an overview of the nature of academic dishonesty with respect to computer science coursework. We discuss the efficacy of various policies for collaboration with regard to student education, and we consider a number of strategies for mitigating dishonest behaviour on computer science coursework by addressing some common causes. Computer…

Tucked away in a 1,200-page bill now in Congress is a small paragraph that could lead distance-education institutions to require spy cameras in their students' homes. It sounds Orwellian, but the paragraph--part of legislation renewing the Higher Education Act--is all but assured of becoming law. No one in Congress objects to it. The paragraph is…

Several Web sites have emerged in recent years that encourage students to upload old exams to build a bank of test questions and answers that can be consulted by other students. This article reports that some professors have raised concerns about these sites, arguing that these could be used to cheat, especially if professors reuse old tests.…

Many colleges use cellphones to warn the campus of potential threats. The devices are, after all, in almost every student's pocket. Now worried instructors and administrators say that students might use phones to cheat on tests. Not only do cellphones give students a new way to stealthily ask a friend for help. They now have the ability to access…

Those in distance education are faced with a formidable challenge to ensure the identity of test takers and integrity of exam results, especially since students are physically removed from the classroom and distributed across the globe. This news digest will provide distance educators not only with a better understanding and awareness of issues…

Tucked away in a 1,200-page bill now in Congress is a small paragraph that could lead distance-education institutions to require spy cameras in their students' homes. It sounds Orwellian, but the paragraph--part of legislation renewing the Higher Education Act--is all but assured of becoming law by the fall. No one in Congress objects to it. The…

Many professors do not give much thought to what students take away from their syllabi. Researchers who have formally pondered the question suggest a number of areas for instructors to consider when drafting a document which is described as a contract drafted with "less attention paid to the language" than any other. In a comparison of syllabi…

Integral to higher education, academic integrity stands as a cornerstone of academic life. However, compelling evidence of widespread academic dishonesty among Net-Generation students threatens to undermine both the environment of trust that nourishes integrity and the safeguards that help ensure it. Working from their experience with widespread…

This article describes in detail the Tian Yong v. University of Science and Technology, Beijing case. Plaintiff Tian Yong sued University of Science and Technology for refusing to issue him certificates of graduation and degree. Tian Yong believed that he had met all the criteria to be considered a legally qualified college graduate and that it is…

The use of a photocopier to archive exams consumes photocopier resources and generates a large amount of waste. As an alternative, I have been using a consumer-grade digital camera to document exams in an upper-division biology course. The approach is inexpensive and offers a number of advantages over photocopies. (Contains 2 figures.)

A number of statistical procedures that were developed in 1983 at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Rutgers Medical School to verify the suspicion that a student cheated during an examination are described. (MLW)

One hundred and ninety-six Israeli middle-school students participated in a study that explored the effects of moral orientation (moral versus conventional) and of three situational variables on attitudes toward two types of cheating in school exams--copying from others ('active') and letting others copy ('passive'). Several vignettes that were…