Online learning has been on the rise for the past few years and recently it has gained popularity because of coronavirus. Online learning has its advantages and disadvantages but the biggest problem that arises for online learning is online exams. Online exams are good in ways but the issue with online exams is that a teacher can never fully guarantee to avoid cheating and let’s be honest students always find different ways to cheat and manage to not get caught.

There is no way you can avoid cheating but yes you can try and minimize it. Students somehow manage to cheat during physical exams and the chances of getting away with cheating in online exams are higher because they are alone and have umpteen ways to cheat and you are not present there to stop them or even know if they are cheating. Teachers try to encourage students to not cheat but it is almost impossible to stop a bunch of kids from doing something.

Let’s look at some of the ways collected by Assignment Writers UAE that can help you with encouraging students not to cheat in online exams.

Remind Them the Moral Values

Sometimes all you need is a small reminder. Remind your students how wrong cheating is and what effects it can have later in your life. Explain to them that cheating is a habit and once you are used to it there is possibly no turning back and you will end up cheating in every walk of life. Develop moral values in your students from the beginning of an online course.

Tell them it’s “OK” to Fail

Students mostly turn to cheat when they are afraid of failing and not doing well on tests. Tell them that exams are not a way to define you as a person; it is just a way of evaluating your academic understanding. Some students are good at other things and learning is not their cup of tea, make them comfortable with the idea of not having good marks or failing because students take pressure which affects them psychologically and stresses them. Tell the students that failure is just an opportunity to perform better next time.

Turn on Camera and Microphone

If you are conducting the exam on your own on a video conference then ask the students to turn on their cameras and microphones. This will help you monitor the students with what they are doing and where their attention is. You will be able to hear and look at their activities which reduce the chance of cheating.

Be Strict about Plagiarism

Students simply go on the web, search for a question, and copy-paste the answers with a few changes. Make strict announcement regarding plagiarism percentage and make a policy in which you can cancel a student’s paper if it is plagiarized. This will encourage students to avoid copying directly and even if they do search up the question they will eventually have to change the answer into their own wordings.

Make the Questions Unique

Search for the questions you are planning on giving in the exam on the internet. This will give you the idea of what you are up against and you will get a chance to change your questions. I am not talking about changing the questions completely but you can make tweaks which will make it difficult for students to search the question directly.

Ask Opinionated Question

Give questions and case studies that require thinking before answering. Ask for the student’s opinion at the end of the question and this way students will have to read and solve the questions on their own in order to develop an opinion. These questions will also help you identify what the students actually understood during the course.

Break up the Exam into Chunks

Student cheats when they are stressed and have no idea what they should do. You can divide the exam grades and marks into categories. You can give assignments, presentations, quizzes, etc throughout the course. This will ease up the tension and stress among the students because they’ll know that their results are not completely relying on the final exam. This will encourage students to better in assignments and presentations.