Universities and colleges across the nation have moved to online teaching as the pandemic rages. The change in instructional methods has raised problems with increased cheating.
According to a recent poll of 14 MCCC students 64% said they felt more inclined to cheat since moving online. With the increased accessibility of the Internet the temptation to cheat is paired with easy access to information and materials. However, there is software that schools use to combat this rising issue.
MCCC has turned to Honorlock, a third party software that is made for the purpose of thwarting academic cheating.
According to Vincente Erazo, the manager for Mercer Online, “We all came to a consensus that Honorlock was the tool that would best serve instructors and students.” He continued, “They had some features that we felt would make the process a little bit easier as far as proctoring online.”
According to the company’s website it uses state of the art downloadable software that can detect nearby device searches, recognize verbal keywords, and track the movement to check if an individual looks away from the screen.
At the start of each test, Honorlock takes your picture, scans your student ID, and even has you use your webcam to scan your room. It also records students while taking the test, as well as tracks eye-line to make sure students keep them on the screen.
The purpose of Honorlock taking these precautions is to ensure that students don’t cheat, but some students say it can also lead to a lack of trust and create anxiety about strangers watching them.
Zhane Smith, a Mercer student, says, “I think it’s an invasion of privacy. I personally don’t like being watched, especially in my own home.”
Technical difficulties have also been an issue.
Isaac Kelley, another Mercer student said, “During my test, I was on the screen and it wouldn’t recognize my face. It would take either a couple seconds or a couple minutes to kick back in.” Kelley went on to explain “During that whole time of me trying to adjust myself back into frame it would cut down my test time.”
In the VOICE survey, 71% of students who had used the system said they had experienced technical issues with Honorlock.
Even when all things are working correctly, students motivated to cheat can still work around Honolock. There are whole sub-Reddits devoted to sharing cheating tips. So what happens when you do get caught?
The college’s Academic Integrity Committee (AIC), which is made up of more than 20 faculty and staff members, handles cheating issues on campus.
According to chair of the AIC Professor Nicole Homer, this time last year there have been 19 reported violations. This year there have been 45 with final exams yet to come.
A first academic integrity violation is handled at the discretion of the professor who can do anything from assigning a lower grade to even failing the student in the class.
Whatever the professor decides they have to document the incident and notify the AIC.
If a student has a second offense it requires a response by the Academic Integrity Committee which determines the best way to handle the situation such as potential probation or expulsion.
Biology Professor Ron Smith who is a participating member of the AIC says, “The idea is not that we are strictly there as a committee to punish people, we are there to educate.”
English Professor Matthew Kochis, who is vice-chair of Academic Integrity Committee (AIC) says there are key reasons why students cheat.
“The cases we have seen in the Academic Integrity Committee were usually because they are overworked, they didn’t plan well enough, or they stopped communicating directly with their professor.” Kochis says, adding, “In a pandemic where [online] is the only way we can communicate, students are communicating less. So we need to make sure that they know that there are other avenues for them that aren’t involving cheating or academic violations.”
According to Professor Smith aside from the risk of being punished, the real problem is that students who cheat end up not knowing the content of their classes.
Smith says, “[If] you don’t know what the previous information is, how are you going to make any sense out of it?”
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Media co-adviser Professor Matthew Kochis recused from advising on this article because of his role on the AIC.
