Ethics and distance education: Strategies for minimizing academic dishonesty in online assessment

This paper discusses ethics and student assessment, as applicable to the growing field of distance education. In particular, this paper discusses strategies for minimizing academic dishonesty in online student assessment. Among the strategies discussed are acknowledging the disadvantages of online assessment and overcoming them, designing an effective, cheat-proof online assessment, keeping online courses current, and providing students with an academic dishonesty policy. Overview of Ethics and Assessment One of the more pervasive issues that an educator faces is the "age-old concerns about ethical practices in assessment (i.e., cheating) " (Abbott, Siskovic, Nogues, and Williams 2000). In fact, recent studies are indicative that academic dishonesty is on the rise (Niels). For example, McMurtry (2001) cites a 1998 survey from Who’s Who Among American High School Students which reported that out of 3,123 students, 80 percent of them "admitted to cheating on an exam, a 10-point increase since the question was first asked 15 years ago " (Bushweller 1999). Furthermore, 50 percent of them "did not believe cheating was necessarily wrong, " and 95 percent of those who had cheated "said they had never been caught " (Kleiner and Lord 1999). Such statistics clearly indicate the pervasiveness of cheating in our schools. In Classroom Assessment: Concepts and Application, Airasian presents a partial list (adapted from Cizek 1999) of ways in which students cheat. Below is Airasian’s list: Looking at another pupil’s test paper during a test.1. Dropping ones paper so that other pupils can cheat off it.2. Dropping one’s paper and having another pupil pick it up, cheat from it, and re-drop the paper so the original dropper can reclaim his or her paper. 3. Passing an eraser between two pupils who write test information on the eraser.4. Developing codes such as tapping the floor three times to indicate that a multiple-choice item should be answered "C." 5. Looking at pupils ’ papers while walking up to the teacher to ask a question about the test