November 2004 — Exclusive
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Designing Distance Delivery Courses
It’s no secret that exams are stolen from offices; thus, detecting if students possess advance exam copies is challenging. Normally, good professors teaching a traditional class interact with students adequately enough to assess their ability without exams. Aberrations between exam results and perceived ability are readily apparent. Unfortunately, while the symptom is apparent, the resolution is often difficult. It is also inappropriate to substitute a subjective assessment for a flawed objective one. Consequently, awareness of advance question knowledge merely implies the need for future precautions.
Inappropriate collaboration. Collaboration is sometimes beneficial, but frequently inappropriate. Bowers (1964) reported that the greatest amount of dishonest behavior occurs in unsupervised homework or laboratory assignments. Collaboration is exacerbated with distance delivery; using a personal assistant during exams may be easier with privacy. The well-known case of Edward Kennedy sending a skilled Spanish speaker to take Kennedy’s exam is an early example of this technique (McGinniss 1993). Kennedy’s attempt to pass the course by cheating was thwarted by an observant proctor who recognized the imposter. It is likely that numerous similar instances have gone undetected. With unsupervised distance delivery exams, two or more students can combine efforts with little fear of detection. Paper exam-question answers can similarly be copied. Students within eyeshot can observe answers entered on other exams. However, a watchful proctor can help to reduce the copying problem. When distance delivery students must assemble in monitored facilities to limit cheating, benefits also diminish. Geographically dispersed students reduce this problem, but communication devices allow deception.
Breaking into systems. Internet-connected computer systems have long been recognized as vulnerable. Consequently, it is inevitable that Internet-based distance delivery courses are susceptible to tampering. The people adequately skilled to break into these systems are very limited. This handful of people has the capability of inappropriately benefiting and readily sharing their work widely and quickly.
The notion of breaking into the system is not totally new with distance delivery. Students long ago broke into locked offices and changed grades. Years ago, I detected that a student had broken into my locked office and changed a grade recorded for him in my gradebook. He was captured during a later attempt at another office after elaborate efforts. It is likely that few such crimes have been detected, though I’m sure everyone has heard similar stories.
Plagiarism. Reports and essays have been long abused by plagiarists. Detecting plagiarism is easier when reports are delivered in a machine-readable format. Plagiarism is defined as presenting another’s words or ideas as one’s own without credit. Exact words probably constitute most plagiarism instances. Plagiarism detection previously required prior awareness of another document. But modestly insightful professors can usually select a handful of potential sources from the bibliography and review copies to confirm the plagiarism. Another approach is to retain copies of previously submitted reports for comparison. This provides a limited database and still depends on the professor’s ability to recognize repeated patterns manually. Commercially available products such as MyDropBox.com (
