Academic Integrity in an Online World: Maintaining Rigor While Showing Compassion

For instructors who have extensive experience teaching online, the use of strategies and software to lessen the likelihood of cheating is common practice. As more instructors move to online teaching, what do we know about these strategies? What works and what doesn’t? Reports of increasing numbers of students cheating on assignments and exams have flooded the professional media sites, leading to concerns that instructors who are either just learning these skills, or trying to be supportive and flexible with their students in these difficult times (or both) are being taken advantage of. How can we create conditions that support the success of students without undermining the academic quality our faculty promote?