Preventing cheating is a challenge we all face today given not only students’ ingenuity, but also the available student tools on the internet that publish tests and answers from many, many courses. And now there is... ChatGPT!!!

Although it may be difficult to prevent cheating entirely, there are steps that can be implemented, reducing the impact of cheating for the student learning assessment process for online courses. 

I’d like to share with you the practical tips I found from Northern Illinois’s Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. These tips may help reduce cheating for the two most common uses of online learning assessments, which are testing and homework assignments.

Tips for testing – using learning management systems

Purposefully select assessment methods

Use online objective tests like multiple choice, multiple answer, true/false are best implemented for lower stakes assessing student learning. In fact, these types of quizzes are often best used as student self-checks in preparation for higher stakes assessments. 

When assessing student mastery of course goals and objectives, objective tests may not be the best option considered among a range of methods. While an objective test can measure a student’s ability to recall or organize information, other methods are far preferable for assessing the higher order/critical thinking skills including understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.

Mix objective and subjective questions

Online testing using multiple choice, multiple answer, true/false, fill in the blank might be a part of a summative assessment of mastery that also includes short answer or essay questions. 

These types of questions are more subjective in nature and demand a deeper understanding of the subject matter. Consider questions that allow students to demonstrate higher order thinking skills with the application of principles learned for unique situations. While mixing objective and subjective questions does not stop information sharing, it can limit the impact on the student’s final grade.

Create your own question pools

Rather than using a fixed number of items that remain unchanged for each administration of the test, consider creating a question pool using any institution’s learning management tools.

Group questions by any number of criteria including topic, subject matter, question type or difficulty of the question. I would also suggest grouping questions according to the learning outcome associated with the question. 

A pool will generate an assessment with randomized questions selected by the faculty member. Pools can be created from new questions or those in existing tests or pools. Pools are most effective when there are large numbers of questions in one particular group. For example, one might have a pool of true/false questions, another of multiple choice and a third for fill in the blank. 

You might create an assessment drawing a specific number of questions from each of those pool categories. Faculty can also add new questions to pools each time the course is taught to expand the variability of questions. Conversely, older questions can be removed. 

Randomize questions

When creating a test using a learning management system, you are often given the option to randomize the selection of test questions as well as the order in which they appear. The benefit is that students are unlikely to get the same questions in the same sequence when taking a test. 

This strategy addresses the issue of students who take a test at the same time in order to share answers. This is also relevant if faculty allows students to repeat the test. Each time this occurs, a test will be made up of questions that are randomly selected and ordered.

Limit feedback

When possible, you should limit what types of feedback are displayed to students upon completion of a test. Providing test scores is important feedback that indicates how well students have performed and should be made available. However, through a process of elimination, students may be able to determine the correct answer for each test question if their submitted answers are identified as incorrect. Or if the correct answer is provided.

Students could lose the incentive to both prepare for testing or to seek correct answers by reviewing lecture notes, assigned readings, or through a group discussion after completing tests. Thus, faculty might reconsider whether to include ‘Submitted Answers’ as an option to be displayed to students. 

This is especially relevant if faculty have allowed students to repeat tests. Each time a test was taken, students could attempt a different answer for a test question that was previously graded as incorrect. Correct answers to all test questions could eventually be accumulated and passed on to other students, or to students of future classes. Or answers could be posted to some online site where students can access exams from a vast number of courses and subjects.

Set timer

We have to recognize that students taking an unproctored exam are free to use open book/notes. So you might decide to use time limits if allowed in the learning management system. Students who adequately prepared for a test may well be less likely to rely on open book/notes compared with students unprepared for testing. By setting a test with an expected completion time, unprepared students could have the most to lose as they spend time going over material, and risk not having sufficient time to respond to all the test questions.

Display questions one-at-a-time

If a test has more than 5 questions, do not choose the ‘All at Once’ option for displaying all the questions on the same screen. It is quite easy for students to take a screen capture of the displayed questions and share them with other students. While students can still screen capture pages with single questions, or even type them into a document, it is more time consuming and unwieldy.

Tips for homework assignments: assessing student progress and mastery

Create application assignments

Create assignments that require students to apply essential course concepts to a relevant problem. This encourages students to seek relevant information beyond the assigned readings and lectures and conduct independent research by identifying credible sources to support the development of their assignments. 

Students can be required to report their progress on a regular basis through email, or through the journaling assignments offered in any Revel titles. This documentation makes it easier for faculty to see the development of a student’s work from inception to completion. In addition, it may possibly identify unexplained gaps that could occur if students used the work of others and claimed it as their own. 

Faculty can add input at any point in this process to provide guidance, and perhaps suggest new directions for students. Both documentation of progress through regular status reporting and occasional faculty input can add a greater level of scrutiny to students. This can make it more difficult to pass off the work of others as their own. I use this method in my psychology courses by using my learning management system’s Discussion Forums. I require responses that use proper APA and documentation as well as student to student comments.

Create group assignments

Create group assignments that require students to interact with group members regularly. Groups can be made responsible for determining the functional roles for each member, establishing a mechanism for accountability (i.e., submitting weekly progress reports), and sharing drafts of individual progress on a group project. For a project to be truly collaborative, each group member should be familiar with everyone else’s work, and be able to describe how every group members’ contribution supports the whole group assignment. 

Students who are using the work of others may not be able to adequately describe the significance of their ‘own’ work, or how it contributes to the group’s overall project. Group projects for me have been improved with online students using the Revel tool, Shared Media. I’m able to group students and have them submit a shared document or recording for evaluation. 

Create assignments that require presentations

Conduct asynchronous online assignments for class presentations. This is easily accomplished with the same Shared Media tool in Revel. I have been using this video upload tool for over 13 years with my public speaking students. 

Students may be asked to submit a progress report or use a Journal to reflect on what they have learned in the past week that supports work toward the presentation. You might consider using a discussion forum for these progress reports where classmates can contribute to one another. 

To further scrutinize work on the presentation, students may be asked to include time for questions and answers. Students who have developed the presentation should be comfortable answering a range of topic-related questions from an arranged audience. I required my speech students to have an audience of 7 adults and include a Q&A that is captured on video as well as their speech presentation.

Check for plagiarism using SafeAssign

SafeAssign is a remarkable plagiarism prevention tool that detects matches between students’ submitted assignments and existing works by others. These works are found on a number of databases including ProQuest ABI/Inform, Institutional document archives, the Global Reference Database, as well as a comprehensive index of documents available for public access on the internet. 

SafeAssign can also be used to help students identify how to attribute sources properly rather than paraphrase without citing the original source. Thus, the SafeAssign feature is impressive and effective as both a deterrent and an educational tool. 

Using any of the Writing Assignments in the Revel tool can have this Safe Assign evaluate any submission for plagiarism.

Use discussion assignments

Creating Discussion Board assignments require students to demonstrate critical thinking skills by responding to a relevant forum topic. 

You may also design a rubric that is specific to the Discussion Board assignment and develop questions that require students to respond to every rubric category. 

Having assignments that are very specific makes it more difficult for students to use portions of a previous term paper or other sources. 

Include academic integrity policy statement in the course syllabus

As faculty we need to include a policy statement regarding academic integrity in the course syllabus. 

In addition, reiterate academic policies for students taking an online course and clarifying guidelines for completing tests and assignments so that students are not confused about what they can and cannot do.

While this, in and of itself, may not be sufficient to change behavior, its acknowledged presence in the syllabus acknowledges a commitment to honesty in the academic arena. It also establishes the clear expectation that academic integrity is an important principle to live by. 

Faculty may also choose to mention this policy using the ‘Announcements’ feature in any of your learning management systems, or while conducting a live web conference session.

Learn More

Preserving academic integrity is an ongoing challenge for traditional face-to-face, blended, and courses that are entirely online. While a number of expensive technology solutions, such as retinal eye scanners and live video monitoring have been developed to prevent cheating in online courses, the practical recommendations above can reduce the impact of cheating on assessing student performance online. 

What’s more than a pandemic problem

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. colleges and universities have faced a mounting mental health crisis impacting students of higher education. Compounding this issue, traditional counseling centers at schools can no longer mitigate the issue and keep up with the surging demand.

How bad is it? In a national survey conducted in 2021, nearly 75% of students reported moderate or severe psychological distress (National College Health Assessment, American College Health Association, 2021).

A comprehensive study by the Healthy Minds Network and Sarah Lipson, a Boston University School of Public Health assistant professor of health law, policy, and management, resulted in startling findings. Their survey of 350,000 students at over 300 campuses, showed college student mental health consistently declined nationally from 2013 to 2021 with an overall 135% increase in depression and 110% increase in anxiety.

Moreover, the study showed mental health problems on those campuses had actually doubled!

Lipson and her colleagues also discovered mental issues take a disproportionate toll on students of color. The study became the first long-term, multicampus one of its kind to outline differences in treatment and the pervasiveness of mental health issues across ethnicity and race.

What’s causing this downward trend?

Although today’s students tend to seek out mental health treatment sooner than prior generations did, collegiate life can be especially overwhelming for those suffering from the impact of COVID-19, mass violence, and social injustice — on top of financial challenges and their ongoing balancing act of school and work schedules.

Freshman year for many reveals another reality for newly enrolled undergrads: Living apart from the direct emotional support of parents and siblings. That first semester comes with many surprises, and many aren’t prepared to navigate all the challenges alone.

Also factor in that these young adults haven’t even finished developing physically yet. The brain’s prefrontal cortex does not finish developing and maturing until the mid- to late 20s. This area is responsible for skills like planning, prioritizing, and controlling impulses (National Institutes of Health, NIH Publication No. 20-MH-8078), and yet each student must absorb a slew of new information, people, and places — often all at once.

According to Lipson, “75% of lifetime mental health problems will onset by age 24.” Given that fact, it’s easy to see why they need our help. Addressing the support gap, however, takes a concerted effort including a devoted effort by faculty and staff.

Mental wellness to the rescue

Maybe as an educator, you are looking for ways you can help support your students’ mental health to navigate through this ‘new normal’ world. This article will delve into some simple ways to do that.

6 immediate steps to help improve student mental wellness —

Educators like you can learn how to start changing the course of this trend by taking the following steps. Not just for students, but for the local and global communities we share as well as society as a whole.

1. Get creative with your approach in helping students

Perhaps your colleagues and you are already helping learners to receive at least some degree of mental wellness support. Rethinking the way you do this, however, could greatly improve their future wellbeing.

Increasingly, schools have established more resources like same-day intake and single counseling sessions (versus making students in need wait months). Has your school done this? If so, encourage those needing help to connect to these services. Experts have found this new approach to be more practical than providing only traditional therapy to an entire student population.

Just remember to help manage student expectations of the system as campus clinics can’t always see them at a moment’s notice. By dialing ‘9-8-8’ on their mobile phone though anyone can reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — any time, any day.

If your school doesn't have on-campus support, a great resource of national hotlines can be found on the American Psychological Association website. 

Thinking even a little out of the box can be what some students most welcome. For instance, if a learner is struggling in one of your courses, they may benefit from a workshop on sleep, time or stress management, and goal setting.

“This increase in demand has challenged institutions to think holistically and take a multifaceted approach to supporting students,” says Kevin Shollenberger, Johns Hopkins University’s vice provost for student health and well-being. “It really has to be everyone’s responsibility at the university to create a culture of well-being.”

2. Be more aware

It can’t hurt to become more observant both in and outside the lab, lecture hall, or classroom.

Someone right under your nose who’s enrolled in one of your classes may be experiencing a very challenging time, but perhaps you can become that vulnerable student’s first line of support at the school.

Maybe several of your students are dealing with all the woes from the pandemic and facing loneliness or roommate conflicts for the very first time. Confidential peer counseling could be a valuable resources for them.

A kind, sincere suggestion by a trusted professor to seek professional help could be more than welcomed by the learner. Far from home, you could be that authority figure who cared enough to reach out, something they may remember for the rest of their life.

Signs a student may be facing a mental crisis:

• Dramatic body weight changes
• Appearing disheveled (e.g.: lethargic, inebriated, etc.)
• No longer submitting any classwork
• Often tardy for class
• Exhibiting sudden behavioral changes (i.e.: extreme mood swings)

Any one or combination of these signs may indicate they are facing a situational or more grave mental health issue. And, there are others of course.

Not all the signs are obvious ones though. Many go unseen and unheard. Students may find it easier to hide their sorrow, but not their happiness.

Keep in mind that students with acute matters (e.g.: sexual assault post-trauma, emotional abuse, depression, and eating disorders) will require one-on-one therapy with professional counselors. Never attempt to counsel them yourselves. Urge them to reach out to a licensed medical professional for treatment.

Sometimes, academic advisers, athletic coaches, and staff are formally trained to spot and monitor students who appear distressed. Even Penn State’s food service staff are empowered to refer students exhibiting eating disorders.

3. Help students tap into their school’s wellness resources

Just asking a student, “Is everything going okay?” can be telling. Their answer might reveal they need help getting assistance, especially if facing a type of emotional or physical communication barrier.

So prepare for this! Be sure you’re aware of all the school’s mental wellness resources on campus and online support and how you can react.

DukeReach at Duke University, for instance, allows anyone on campus to communicate concern about a student if uncertain how to proceed. Trained providers can then offer a form of support such as a welfare check.

Find out about your school’s referral and reporting systems and how to strictly abide by them. Now’s the time to know. Not after the fact.

Your referral may include calling the counseling center to make an appointment on behalf of a troubled student who may be less likely to seek help on their own. Other learners may just need a teacher to suggest a wellness workshop.

Shollenberger emphasizes, “Faculty aren’t expected to be counselors, just to show a sense of care that they notice something might be going on, and to know where to refer students.”

When students come to class after hearing about (or even witnessing/experiencing) a major traumatic event, just having a teacher encourage a class discussion about that topic can help appease them emotionally — versus a teacher ‘sweeping it under the rug.’ At Johns Hopkins, Shollenberger and his team worked with faculty on how to do this after students felt disturbed the Ukraine War wasn’t mentioned in class.

4. Encourage mindfulness

Do your students practice mindfulness? Many may not even know what it means. By explaining it, you can possibly help them to help themselves to mental wellness.

Mindfulness can help individuals to reflect and assess new information, but also manage their own thoughts. It can enable us to avoid anxious feelings when we learn to step back and focus on the moment.

Students will find it overwhelming to study and absorb details and concepts under duress. Anyone would. But, when a student can just be present in the moment, they can observe and absorb more and respond more appropriately.

Right about now, you may be thinking, “Hey, I could benefit from practicing mindfulness more myself.” After all, we’re all human. No one is immune to distress.

Ashley Lodge, Global Mindfulness Lead for Pearson says, “Understanding the two modes of mind, ‘doing’ and ‘being’, and being able to shift the gear between the two, helped me better navigate daily life. It’s not some kind of quick fix. It takes daily practice (meditation) to help rewire the brain towards calmer, wiser ways of thinking and approaching life.”

Many schools support cultural mindfulness, too. Their student counselors will at times immerse themselves within academic units, becoming cultural experts. They study how engineering learners may, for instance, differ from their liberal arts counterparts or vice versa. Meanwhile, it presents an opportunity to be more accessible to them.

At Pearson, we actively practice mindfulness by asking “What if?” and relentlessly innovating new possibilities for everyone with speed, agility, and integrity. It’s not ‘lip service.’ We truly want to leave a lasting impact on everyone we serve and hope you do, too.

5. Consider which students are most at risk

Certain learners are much more likely to require critical mental health support and treatment than others.

The Healthy Minds Network/Sarah Lipson study also found half of American Indian/Alaskan Native college students by the 2019 and 2020 semesters were screening positive for depression. Not a trivial fact at all, but a serious challenge when it comes to learning, coping skills for life, and advancing their communities.

Other groups have their own tendencies toward certain mental illnesses. Although the highest rate of non-suicidal self-injury and eating disorders are with white students, non-white groups experience the most anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and other mental health issues, according to the data.

Much is being done though to address the issues. Somewhat informal groups called “counselor chats,” can be helpful for reaching underserved groups such as first-generation college students, international learners, and students of color who aren’t as likely to seek services at campus counseling centers.

At Johns Hopkins University, counselors often facilitate meetings through partnerships that support specific populations like LGBTQ students. Their “Chat with a Counselor” online drop-in mental health service offers informal, confidential, and one-on-one visits for students.

Low-income students are also at risk. Being mindful of this reality can go a long way in establishing trust with them and helping them succeed.

6. Stay informed and be part of the solution

Do you know how your own school is tackling its student mental health crisis? If not, it’s critical you find out right away. Educate yourself on what can be done by learning the effective ways other colleges or universities are succeeding and bring them to the attention of your administration as soon as possible. We’re all in this together!

What’s working at your school? What’s not and why? New opportunities may exist for your campus health clinic to implement soon or the near future.

Which threats can be averted or mitigated? As an educator, you may have the knowledge, experience, personality traits, or communication skills to participate in a new wellness initiative. Yes, you too, marketing, music education, and social study professors! Which lessons can we apply as learned from business, culture, sociology or history?

Many schools have been working full-time already to think out of the box and apply new methods. For instance, have you heard of “Let’s Talk” programs? Students can just drop in for an informal one-on-one session with a counselor.

More and more, colleges and universities are contracting with telehealth platforms to ensure that services are available whenever students need them while adding on-campus and virtual resources through apps. Maybe your school is, too.

Penn State offers a counselor-staffed crisis line that’s available anytime to students who are ready to talk or requesting an urgent in-person response. Meanwhile, Johns Hopkins started a behavioral health crisis support program that dispatches crisis clinicians with public safety officers to handle wellness checks.

Those are just a few examples we can all learn from.

By creating a culture of wellness with your colleagues, staff and students, you can help reverse this downward trend, one learner at a time.

Educating ourselves though is the proactive first step.

Looking for an easier, more dynamic way to inspire your students’ learning? Revel^® teaching and learning platform from Pearson will feel like a joy compared to textbooks as it integrates videos and dynamic interactives into compelling digital narratives.

The platform keeps your students on pace, provides a clear view of their engagement and performance, and is easily accessed from the first day of classes. It puts them in the digital driver’s seat and on a smoother road to success.

Revel improves students' course grades and exam scores. In our numerous research studies, the data show that students who engage with Revel are more prepared for class and get better grades. In addition, instructors benefit when they use Revel performance data to identify struggling students.

Taking a moment now to learn about Revel’s top features can help improve the learning experience for your learners of today and tomorrow.

Revel’s top 5 features —

1. Educator Dashboard: offers an at-a-glance look at overall class performance. It helps instructors more easily identify and contact struggling and low-activity students, ensuring that the class stays on pace. By identifying at-risk students you can implement early intervention strategies to help them succeed in the course.

2. Embedded Assessments allow for practice and review, improving comprehension, filling learning gaps, and providing feedback. Students can practice and quiz themselves to review concepts while easily assessing their understanding to better prepare.

3. Shared Writing Assignments foster critical thinking through writing without significantly impacting your grading burden. Throughout each narrative, self-paced journaling prompts encourage students to express their thoughts without breaking stride in their reading.

Assignable shared writing activities direct students to share written responses with classmates, promoting peer discussion. Essays integrated directly within Revel allow you to assign the precise writing tasks they need.

4. Shared Media Assignments enable instructors and students to post and respond to videos and other media. Students can also record and upload their own presentations for grading, comments, or peer review.

Video quizzes engage students while checking their understanding of concepts. Instructors can share videos accompanied by time-stamped multiple-choice questions.

5. Instructor App enables instructors to easily view performance insights and contact struggling and low-activity students to help them get back on track – anytime, anywhere.

Teaching tools to love —

Inspiring active learning enables students to explore, contextualize information, and apply concepts as they read. It unlocks students’ curiosity and immerses them in subjects, reading and practicing in one continuous experience. Research shows this approach leads to higher recall of key concepts versus passive engagement alone.

Notetaking, highlighting and more make learning fully digital and highly engaging, providing students everything needed for a course — through one continuous, integrated learning experience. Highlighting, note taking, and a glossary let them read and study however they prefer. Instructors can add notes, too, including reminders or study tips.

Monitoring student progress allows educators to monitor student progress on assigned reading, which is a good indicator of how the class is doing. By tracking reading and having the option to make it a percentage of the final grade, they can hold students accountable and keep them on track.

It's a smooth ride to the future with Revel. Read how from other instructors and the impact Revel has had in their classroom and the lives of their students: