The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged the accounting firm, Ernst & Young, with cheating on ethics exams for Certified Public Accountant licensing and lying about it to investigators. Along with the $100 million fine, the firm will have to undertake extensive remedial measures to fix the firm’s ethical issues. Auditors say that SEC is investigating three other large public accounting firms for conflicts of interest.

30 Chemistry Honors students were penalized for cheating when members of the class leaked photos of the answers for a unit test through a group text message. While the teacher was proctoring this early test, a student from the other room took a picture of a completed test sitting on the teacher’s desk. He then started to sell the test to other students for $5. According to the Paly Student Handbook, altering returned tests or stealing exams includes suspension and possible expulsion.

A study by The Center for Academic Integrity reveals that 80% of college students today admit to having cheated in some way at least once. To track down plagiarism in students’ work, professors use online plagiarism scanning tools, like Turnitin. At Huntington University, punishment for students who commit plagiarism varies by the professor, ranging from failure of the assignment plagiarized to the entire course. However, 7 out of 10 students questioned the accuracy of tools like Turnitin stating that professors should do backup checks before grading.

An anthropology professor at Yale College reported to the University’s Executive Committee that 81 out of 136 total students for inappropriate use of online and course materials during online open-note examinations. In 2020, the Executive Committee reprimanded 49 out of 78 students, 10 were placed on probation, five were suspended and 14 were found not responsible or had their charges withdrawn.

Chapman University professor is suing a group of students who posted two of his exams on an education-based document-sharing website to solicit in advance answers to several essay questions. According to the civil complaint filed in U.S. District Court, the professor is seeking damages for copyright infringement and ethical violation of Chapman’s honour code. The tests contained a warning that they were copyright protected.

According to an associate professor at the University of Calgary, the rate of academic misconduct during the pandemic rose from 38% to over 200%. Students who use the services of companies to write essays or complete assignments for them are often extorted. Companies continue to charge their credit cards, threatening to report them to their schools if they try to seek help.

17 medical students at the Geisel School of Medicine were accused of cheating during online exams. The school found evidence of the students who logged into the online course platform Canvas, giving them access to the answers. After an investigation, seven of the cases were dismissed, while the other ten students were expelled, suspended, or giving a failing grade for the course. Some also received unprofessional conduct marks on their records.

Due to a glitch in the online testing program, 31 students out of a class of 137 were involved in a cheating incident at Southern University's School of Nursing. The students used their cell phones and notified other students through a group text message that the cameras were off so that they could cheat. With the exam being compromised, the faculty administered a different exam that covered the same content.

To help combat cheating and plagiarism during the pandemic and to encourage studying and preparedness a University of Prince Edward Island professor developed the testing method called TSINC. This method stands for time-pressed, sequential, individualized, not searchable, and calibrated. Each student receives a unique exam of 50 question orders, with 30 minutes to answer which they are not allowed to go back to.

According to a report at the Thompson Rivers University, the number of academic integrity cases has doubled. They include 514 incidents of plagiarism, 342 incidents of cheating, 5 incidents of fabrication and 347 incidents of academic misconduct for 1,208 cases recorded from September 2019 to August 2020. 80 students have been subject to suspension by November 2020.