Educators Put In Place Safeguards Against Cheating Online (and Otherwise)

As online courses become more and more popular, concerns are growing that some students are cheating or getting too much help from parents. Some schools are putting measures into practice such as having students complete work in person and monitoring parents' logins to a virtual schooling site. Parents of students enrolled in the online courses are also given an "auditor" login—separate from the student's login—for the learning-management system, which allows parents to see everything in the course but does not allow them to turn in work. Teachers can then see how much time the auditor has spent logged in, and if the parent seems very familiar with the student's online learning, but has not logged in as an auditor, it could raise a red flag. Of course, plagiarism detection software remains a popular detection method. Web conferencing software also allows educators to better gauge student understanding of the material.