CHALLENGES IN HIGHER ONLINE EDUCATION: DISCOURAGING FRAUDULENT ATTEMPTS ON ONLINE EXAMS

Abstract

It has been more than a year since the coronavirus pandemic pushed higher education even more towards an online format, along with many of its key-activities involved. When it comes to transitioning from conventional face-to-face examination to fully online assessment, the use of e-learning tools such as Moodle may bring multiple benefits but they could also raise a lot of concerns. One of the main concerns refers to content leakage, which involves the unauthorized distribution of the exam subjects, such as question banks, or sharing the quiz attempts with colleagues. When this happens, it can hinder the integrity of the online exams and their unique content, and of course, it will impact grades. There could be various causes for content leaks, such as lack of supervision or maybe settings incorrectly applied to quizzes. However, these could be some of the contributing factors that are enabling students to cheat. In light of the above, the aim of this paper is straightforward: to identify and outline the most important and feasible key-measures that could be adopted in order to detect and prevent or (at least substantially) decrease cheating during online exams. As we will further see, the real challenge appears when it comes to tracking down and grasping cheat scenarios. Fortunately, in this approach, we can mix the facilities provided by technologies used in online classes.