Cheating in an Online Exam ▶ NEW TRENDS

Cheating in an online exam, the new problems for teachers. Major education has changed in recent years and not only because of the pandemic. For a couple of years now, they have started to implement in most universities that exams will be taken through the internet. This aspect that has caused "an evolution" in the ways of copying.

After much discussion about it, a large majority of university, high school, language school and other educational institution exams are now being taken online. Globalization, the power of technology, as well as the impossibility of taking exams in person during the pandemic has forced to improvise and develop new ways for students to continue their academic activities normally. Although in principle the idea sounds extremely attractive, this has some consequences, such as plagiarism in the exams.

Presenting an exam remotely, at home, causes a difficult situation, that the teacher cannot perform a thorough control over the exam. Some things, such as the attitude or the tools available to the student who is taking the exam, cause some problems for the teacher who applies the evaluation. This problem is of great concern to the institutions, however, they have not been able to find a way to effectively combat this situation.

Among the main proposals, already applied previously, is to make exams with shorter questions. With a greater number of questions and, if possible, that each student would receive them in a different order to prevent them from being communicated through the network. Personalization of the exams is a way that has shown some results to avoid copying. Although there are also some professors who apply oral exams, individualized papers with defense and more.

In any case, whether you managed to fight cheating in an online exam in some form or not. The computer camera has been key in exams to try to keep tabs on students. Although this can pose some problems for students with poor connections and limited resources. Not all solutions allow for the best results expected by teachers.

At the time of the study, we could see that in El Economista they have listed some of the most common cheat applied in the exams. One of them and the most outstanding has been to make a video call between those who present the evaluation, in order to search in group the answers and exchange information. Detailing everything contained in their exams, because the situation could arise in which their exams were different.

They have also opted for individual traps, with a little help from technology to carry out good solutions. Some like using tools and apps at specific times. As an example, there is Socratic, a useful application from GooglePlay. There are also others that solve mathematical and physics exercises, just by searching you can see how there are many alternatives to have solutions at hand.

Among the biggest problems of concern is identity theft, when someone asks someone else to solve their evaluations. Actually, for this there is no 100% effective security measure, neither the "proctored" exams that use a software to prevent copying. Even if you monitor by camera who is in front of the computer, you can still set up the remote desktop and have another student take the exam.

In addition, commonly used forms can be found. Some like the cheat sheets, accordions and so on, with some modification to suit the technology they are using. Which is usually the most commonly used, since it is very difficult to see around the student, even with a camera they can position their sheets in strategic places.

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