Due to the pandemic, universities had to conduct exams remotely and online in entirely trust-based systems. Students began forming their own ways of working and systems for information exchange which evidently resulted in cheating scandals - including at the University of Auckland.
But the online learning revolution has raised a question; Is it cheating, or using initiative?
Massey University teaching consultant Linda Rowan explores the issue with Sunday Morning, and talks about whether we need to adapt to our new reality and change our testing methods.
Photo: 123RF
Rowan says the evolving technological environment means cheating is a more complex question than it once was.
"We need to think about the whole examination context and the types of knowledge we're looking for, and whether simply transferring the examination formats and styles and the things required of students to do, onto an online environment, is the way that we should be going for the future," she says.
"In normal study we're asking students to collaborate together and learn together, because we know that social learning is really important for building up knowledge and sharing knowledge... so we're actually asking students to do this all the time, and then we get to an exam environment and we're asking for individual knowledge."
She asks whether exams should test wider types of competency as well as the typical tests where they "portray their content knowledge, like facts, formulas".
"We actually need to stop and think through the entire examination process, that it's not suitable to take it just from what it was before and move it onto an online environment, we actually have to rethink the entire area of online examinations, academic integrity and [how] academic misconduct is communicated to students."
Rowan says it's possible a mis-match between how we test and how online teaching operates could be confusing students in exams, which could be behind those students who have reportedly cheated in at-home exams.
"It could be as simple as... what happened with the students is they may have encountered an exam environment which wasn't familiar to them", and they were trying to figure out what to do... sometimes the instructions that they've been given can be confusing to them.
"A lot of these students have been learning in collaborative groups... and they're going and sitting their online exams in those same sort of environments, and they may have said to somebody 'do you know how to get into this? Do you know how to do this?' and it may have eventuated from that.
"Or it could be that amongst their midst there could one one or two people who had decided that they would short-cut the examination system, and went ahead and did something that was outside the regulations."
Rowan says systems can be set up for online exams to monitor or restrict what students are doing on their computers - called a proctoring system. But they're expensive and the monitoring can generate hours of recorded data that has to be scanned by staff if checks are needed.
"So, there is a real problem with the different environments," she says.
