POLICY & REFORM campusreview . com . au
Cheating epidemic
Research supports more traditional ways of holding exams .
By Emilie Lauer
Arecent study has found the majority of Australian university students do not care about the consequences of cheating on their exams and assessments .
According to research by Central Queensland University computer science expert Meena Jha , cheating has escalated on a global scale since the beginning of the pandemic .
“ Universities have a responsibility to ensure students get their degree and have learnt something , otherwise we will have a subgrade workforce ,” she said .
Jha joined Campus Review to discuss her research and raise strategies to reduce cheating .
CR : How has Covid-19 changed the nature of cheating in universities ? MJ : This has become a really big global issue and many universities are reporting dramatic increases in academic misconduct . Last year , the University of New South Wales said it was detecting more than double the amount of cheating among its students post Covid . Before the pandemic , it was under 2 per cent of the students being caught for misconduct each year . Now , it is almost close to 4.5 per cent .
How has this impacted the sector as a whole ? Well , universities are responsible for producing great graduates and these graduates are going in the workforce . And if you are sitting in an emergency department waiting for a doctor , you wouldn ’ t like a doctor who has cheated on their exams . So it is a future threat to society . These graduates are the future workforce .
What can we do to catch cheating students ? There are number of AI tools . Actually video proctoring is among the most common feature , which is being used to prevent cheating for online assessments or online exams . Depending on the type of remote solution , students can be monitored either
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