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MOOCs inspire a new style of cheating, research reveals

MOOC classes are an all together unique learning experience so it’s no surprise that they also inspire new ways of cheating. Researchers at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered a new method of cheating, facilitated by the online learning environment, that could ultimately threaten the credibility of MOOC completion certificates.

Cheating was found to be most prevalent in government, health and social science courses. Scene from the edX promotional video.

The report warns that this type of cheating “threatens perceptions of the value of MOOC certification”

In a report entitled “Detecting and Preventing “Multiple-Account” Cheating in Massive Open Online Courses”, researchers look at one specific method of cheating through online learning – “copying answers using multiple existences online”, also known as CAMEO.

Speaking with The PIE News, report co-author Isaac Chuang, said “as educators we expect cheating to be going on in our classrooms”.

“You can’t do this kind of cheating if you’re a student enrolled in a classroom”

However, he said this is the kind of cheating that you never have in the normal classroom. “It involves a student copying from herself, almost as if the left hand is copying from the right hand– the left hand clicks some answer, logged in with a fictitious username and the right hand copies that answer and enters it into their real username and account. You can’t do that if you’re a student enrolled in a classroom.”

The study looked at almost 1.9 million participants of 115 MOOCs between autumn 2012 and spring 2015, on the MITx and HarvardX MOOC platform, edX. The report found that an estimated 1,237 certificates were earned through the CAMEO method – a total of 1.3%.

The report warns that as a result of users creating what it describes as “harvester” accounts to find the correct answers, it “threatens perceptions of the value of MOOC certification”.

“If learners in some online courses are circumventing the learning process and obtaining certification without going through the traditional routes of assessment and feedback, then the certificate does not necessarily imply that they learned anything,” Chuang told MIT News.

The report found that the curricular field of government, health and social science recorded the highest percentage of CAMEO users at 1.3%. Computer science ranked the lowest with only an estimated 0.1% of CAMEO users. In some courses, CAMEO users accounted for 5% of all certificates earned.

Chuang reasoned the higher prevalence of cheating in specific fields is partly because of the type of information students are learning.

“One way of preventing cheating is randomising the questions- giving the same questions but with slightly different numerical perimeters,” he explained. “But it doesn’t often work with humanities courses because Plato only had one reason for the existence of the world and you can’t quite randomise that question.”

This type of cheating was also found to have geographical sensitivities. Albania had the highest CAMEO count per certificate at an estimated 12%. Indonesia and Serbia followed with 4% and 3%, respectively, with both China and Colombia accounting for 2% each.

The US only saw a CAMEO rate of 0.4% of certificates earned by users. “Maybe one of the reasons is because these MOOC certificates might be seen as having higher value by learners outside of the United States where they haven’t had access to this kind of content,” hypthoesised Chuang.

“In the United States there are many outlets where you can find this kind of learning and this kind of material.”

“MOOC certificates might be seen as having higher value by learners outside of the United States where they haven’t had access to this kind of content”

The report also puts forth methods to combat CAMEO cheating, suggesting that instructors provide different questions to each student or that they withhold the “show answer” option, which is available to view after submitting an answer.

Courses that have adopted this restriction and others, including participants receiving a random question with varying solutions, have seen a lower CAMEO rate – 0.1%. Those which have not adopted these methods, meanwhile, account for 1.2% of the CAMEO rate.

However, Chuang identified a concern that methods to prevent cheating could encroach on the auto-didactic mission of MOOCs.

“Right now there is a current practice in these massive open online courses to provide answers right away because if you’re learning something you learn by finding out that you’re wrong  and you learn by finding out what the explanation of a solution is,” he commented.

“But if they withhold that solution it certainly does put a wrench in this kind of cheating scheme.”

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