Virtual Class ? Why not ?

Since our education system - be it traditional or online - places much importance on student performance in exams, regardless of the students’ overall understanding or knowledge of the subject, it puts students under immense pressure to perform well. This trend is at the root of cheating and plagiarism in exams - online or conventional.

Cheating in a virtual classroom
Cheating has been a concern among educators since long, but it has taken gigantic proportions since the advent of computer based online education. Academic integrity in a virtual classroom has always worried instructors. This is particularly so because of the encompassing belief that online education provides myriad opportunities for students to cheat. But along with cheating opportunities, the web also provides exemplary tools that detect and combat cheating to a large extent. More so in a virtual classroom, where activities like quizzes, group presentations, virtual chats etc. inherently curb cheating. And although there is no denying the existence of cheating in a learning environment, there is no support to the claim that the advent of internet and online learning has, in any way, augmented it.
Curtailing cheating in a virtual classroom
A traditional classroom allows the supervisor to visually monitor students during exams. While this is not possible in a virtual environment, placing time restrictions for the completion of an online exam can take care of the cheating woes in a virtual set up. The exam automatically gets submitted to the instructor, once the time is up. This can restrict, if not completely eliminate online cheating, particularly in a multiple choice quiz type pattern of exam. Like, students will have no time on hand to look up for answers if an exam comprises of answering 20 multiple choice questions in 18 minutes.

Tools like threaded discussions allow the instructor to gauge the level of understanding among students. Being synchronous, they provide no time for the students to cheat, since the responses too are expected in real time. Communication, discussion and debate on a topic can be carried out in a threaded discussion. The writing style of the student as well as the flow of the text gives away the fact whether plagiarism or cheating is at work. Group chat will allow discussions and interaction between students and the instructor, where they can assess the students casually. Also the time commitment required for synchronous communication is a deterrent for cheating.

Plagiarism in a virtual classroom
The easy availability and abundance of online term papers has made it easier for students to plagiarize content. With a simple click of the mouse, they can now copy and paste text in their online papers. Copying from websites is another common method of plagiarizing content. But, while this is largely prevalent among the student community, detection of t is also becoming easier by the day. Unlike in a traditional classroom, the electronically submitted papers can be run through the plagiarism detection softwares or websites.

Curtailing plagiarism in a virtual classroom
Plagiarism in a virtual class can be determined by the following methods

Plagiarism detecting websites

These websites work on a simple principle. They maintain a record of digitally fingerprinted papers. If the student’s submitted paper matches any of the papers form the database, it is a case of plagiarism. Apart from this, web crawlers crawl the internet to search for any matches to the submitted paper. After this, the instructor receives an ‘originality report’. These websites detect whether the entire paper or parts of the paper are plagiarized from different sources.

The only flaw with such websites is that they don’t take into account the quotation marks or the reference to the original source provided by the paper. Hence it is extremely important for the instructor to recheck upon the referenced text before accusing the student of plagiarizing.

Plagiarism detecting software

Such software replaces every fifth word in the text with a blank, asking the student to supply missing words. A plagiarism probability score is finally assessed by different factors including the number of correct responses, time required to intervene, etc.

Search engines

Popular search engines too can detect plagiarism to a considerable level. If there is an inkling of plagiarism, the instructor could enter the suspect phrase into the search engine, whereby, it returns a list of websites that contain the exact term entered. A search on various search engines can broaden the results too.

Conclusion
Some instructors feel that if students take supervision during exams in the wrong spirit and take it as a mistrust of the instructor towards them, it could visibly damage the relationship in the long run, while some others consider it as a violation of code of honor. By widening the criteria of student assessment, their minds can be taken off exams, thus curbing the urge to cheat to a large extent. Instead, regular participation from students in discussions, online chats and other interactive tools will allow the instructor to gauge individual performance of students and grade them accordingly. Examining student performance in a casual causerie is the only way to reduce this menace in education.