Online education is booming.  In 2010, 75% of college presidents considered online education to be the best solution to a budget crisis, and the greatest advantages cited were cost reduction, and the ability to leverage educational technology to generate and measure more standardized learning outcomes.  Online education is more convenient for students, many of whom work full time jobs while completing degree programs.  But like anything else, online learning has its drawbacks.  One of these is a widespread problem of cheating.

Although many online course instructors feel exasperated by their inability to be in direct contact with students, and may feel there is no way to ensure classes are being passed without the assistance of dishonesty, there are some steps that can be taken to reduce the likelihood of cheating in the online classroom.  Here are a few tips from seasoned online course instructors on how to cut out the cheating:

1. Randomize the order in which questions appear on each exam: students who cheat on online quizzes and exam because they are able to copy from each other will find this thwarts their plans, since the questions on the exam are not in the same order as those of their friends. This effective technique is successfully used to prevent some instances of cheating online.
2. Impose time restrictions for exams and quizzes: if your assessments are timed, and students are given just the amount of time needed to complete the quiz or exam, cheating by consulting a textbook or last week’s class notes is greatly diminished.  This also helps cut out Googling for answers.
3. Limit access to your online quizzes and tests: test generator services and companies can help cut out cheating on online examinations. By limiting domain and user access control, and requiring students to log in with valid and unique credentials, this eliminates the chances of someone else taking a test for any student.
4. Creating an exam in which every question on each exam is unique, and has a different set of answer choices is probably the best way to be sure students are not cheating from one another’s tests and quizzes — but if you have 180 students that can be nearly impossible.  With a much smaller class size, however, this would be a worthy investment of your time.

The tips above, which are sponsored by direct tv service, are only a few of the many ways to reduce online class cheating.  By implementing some of the advice given, you should be able to rest easier with your online quizzes and exams.