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The 2017 Kessler International survey highlighted that “79% of students admitted to plagiarizing their assignments from the internet, 42% purchased custom papers online, and 28% said they had a service take their online classes for them.” An expert on integrity and ethics in education argues that minimizing cheating during remote education requires effective communication and instruction, and that classwork and assessments should focus on mastery rather than performance.

The Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities hearing board found 34 undergraduates and 27 graduate students to violate academic integrity guidelines. According to academic integrity experts, graduate students are more likely to make accidental citation mistakes, while undergraduates are more inclined to directly copy information from other sources or purchase essays to pass off as their own. Officials put undergraduates who fall below the 2.0 GPA threshold under academic probation, and graduate students cannot receive a degree with a GPA of less than 3.0.

Universities in the USA use a variety of approaches to combat cheating, from advanced plagiarism detection software, legal action against companies offering paper-writing services to interviews with students suspected of contract cheating. In Canada, the Academic Integrity Council of Ontario brings together college officials twice a year to share best practices. Australia and New Zealand have similar legislation in place: prison sentences up to two years and heavy fines.

After a surge in enrolment of international students, accompanied by a spike in cases of academic misconduct including plagiarism and using prohibited materials on exams, St. Clair College, in Windsor, created the position of academic integrity coordinator. Fanshawe College which had 852 academic offenses in 2016-18, with 907 the flowing year, plans to create a similar position.

Student plagiarism help site? Academics and administration officials at Concordia and McGill universities are raising concerns over Course Hero, a note-sharing website for students which boasts more than just notes. Looking at only a few of its hundreds of pages, CBC Montreal Investigates found 35 chapters lifted from textbooks, and 56 professors' presentations.