A new article showed up today on the Australian news site The Age that discusses how student use of social media may distort how they think about cheating and plagiarism. When does talking about an exam on Facebook become an academic integrity problem? Of course, this depends on a lot of factors, such as when did the discussion happen, how did it happen and the topics discussed. Administrators must be a aware that many members of the Millennial generation communicate heavily through social media, and that the medium lends itself to collaboration and potentially plagiarism and cheating.
In an unproctored online exam, it would be a simple matter for students to collaborate or share exam information on the Internet using various channels of social media. ProctorU can combat this by monitoring students in real time using live proctors that can see the student, see what they’re doing on their computer in real time, and by authenticating the student’s identity.