Project RITE
Perceptions of Academic Honesty in Online vs. Face-to-Face Classrooms
Download final report: PDFMichael Spaulding
Assistant Professor, Educational Studies, UT MartinFinal Report Excerpt
The use of online environments such as Blackboard and Wimba have improved the online format tremendously. These tools have helped instructors develop courses that are engaging, challenging, and personal in nature because of the various features they offer. However, with online courses come new versions of the age-old challenge of maintaining academic integrity in the course. Online instructors are constantly searching for the most effective means by which to accomplish this seemingly ongoing issue. While Blackboard offers safeguards to help eliminate some of the problems involving academic integrity, problems persist. Blackboard features such as Respondus that locks the user’s browser and prevents any other connection with software or other browsers, do offer some help with online testing by making it more difficult to utilize help while taking an online test. Blackboard also contains plagiarism detection systems. Despite the assistance these systems provide, problems with academic honesty continue.