Adjunct Accounting Professor Donald Case believes students who cheat on online classes are only cheating themselves.

“I think most of the students at Central have integrity and don’t cheat, but the ones who do are going to pay for it,” he said. “They’re only hurting themselves, if you don’t know the subject you won’t know the job, so when you fail you only have yourself to blame.”

The Academic Integrity Policy at CMU lists academic dishonesty as using notes, study guides, materials or other assistance which has not been authorized by the instructor. This also applies to online classes.

“In cases involving violation of the Policy on Academic Integrity, determination of the student’s grade and status in the course are made by the instructor,” the policy states.

Case said when he teaches an online class, he assumes students will do the right thing.

“I assume they want to learn – I don’t want to act like a policeman,” he said. “CMU is giving them a chance to learn, I hope they know that. They’ll pay if they cheat.”

Kendra Brown, student services coordinator of online specialty programs, said exams are administered differently online.

“If you can’t monitor an online test, it’s left up to the student,” she said. “I can’t be in 25 students’ dorm rooms at once.”

Brown said if a student is caught cheating on an online exam, they will notify the instructor and the instructor will determine the consequence.

Spring Lake senior Andrew Cook said some students get away with cheating when a professor gives a test on Blackboard, the university’s online academic suite.

“If it’s a math class you can use you’re calculator in your own privacy,” he said. “I think a lot of students get away with it because teachers on campus don’t understand Blackboard. You can print out tests and use copy and paste to cheat the time system of a timed test.”

Cook said he’s had friends who have been caught cheating.

“I’ve had friends get caught cheating online with copyright infringement for English classes,” he said. “English professors have a way of scanning quotes on the Internet to determine if they’ve been used.”

Cook said the only way to cut down on cheating in online classes is to put more tests on campus and have them written.

“It is much harder to cheat on a written test,” he said.

China freshman Fan Feng said a lack of supervision could lead some students to look at notes and other materials.

“With nobody watching you their are no students or professors to know that you’d be using class material,” she said. “Taking online classes is still a new thing though, I’m not sure how many students do it.”

Feng said it mostly depends on whether or not students want to use the book.

Brighton senior Heather Tobel said cheating on online classes also depends on the instructor.

“It depends a lot on the professor,” she said. “Some allow books, and if your instructor gives a hard question and everyone gets it right, you know something happened.”

news@cm-life.com

E-mail the author: defaultuser