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According to a recent poll of Mercer Country Community College students, 64% said they felt more inclined to cheat since moving online. Even though the MCCC uses the Honorlock software that can detect nearby device searches, recognize verbal keywords, and track the students’ movement, the college’s Academic Integrity Committee (AIC) found 45 cases of cheating.

The assistant dean of students reported 292 cases of academic dishonesty on the Atlanta campus for the academic year 2019/20. For the current year, from July 1 through, 268 more cases through November 5. With the increased use of technology and apps like GroupMe, universities all over the country had to integrate cheating via GroupMe into their academic honesty policies.

While the Academic Integrity Policy has not changed since the transition to remote learning at Rutgers faculty, departments have implemented new measures in an effort to prevent cheating. The Office of Student Conduct has created tutorial videos on completing work honestly, and on exams and major assignments, students should write and sign an honour pledge. The policy includes seven types of violations: plagiarism, cheating, and fabrication, facilitation of dishonesty, academic sabotage, violation of research or professional ethics and violations involving potentially criminal activity.

There has been an increase in academic misconduct at Mount Royal University from 62 cases between March and August in 2019 to 130 cases this year. They include cheating, sharing answers or work, plagiarism, and misrepresenting facts or information that gives a person an unfair academic advantage over other students. The university is also looking at programs for e-proctoring and student integrity that would lend to preventing misconduct.

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.

14 students from the University of Calgary taking a third-year geology course received academic misconduct notices after sharing tutorial answers in an online chatroom. According to one student, the course was an open book and the professor gave them contradictory and confusing instructions. In addition to getting failing grades, students who accept guilt or are found guilty following an appeal are also required to take academic integrity workshops.

All of the exam questions for a Finance 311 class were loaded onto external websites while the exam was in progress. The release of the final exam scores and overall course grades have therefore been delayed pending an investigation into potential academic integrity violations. Students caught cheating can incur penalties from the Office of Student Conduct, including a 70% reduction on their exam grades, having to pass a module on academic integrity, a flag on their permanent record, and a $100 fine.