Using technology to cheat on tests the problem of hi-tech cheating

With the help of modern technology, humans can transmit information in a matter of
seconds, and the education expansion has been great ever since this technology was facilitated to
help students learn or access to learning materials.
However, technology has also become a double-edge sword in this process. There have
been several reports that high-tech cheating is becoming a severe issue in many countries such as
China, Thailand, and even several developed nations. In his research, Dr. Young, who specializes
in education research, stated that technology has given students more tools than ever to find
answers in unauthorized wayswhether downloading online solution manuals or instant-
messaging friends for answers. The latest surveys by the Center for Academic Integrity found
that 22 percent of students say they have cheated on a test or exam, but about twice as many43
percenthave engaged in "unauthorized collaboration" on homework (Young,2010).
This is a big issue because cheating on examinations is a serious moral lapse. This
decreases the students incentives to participate in exams, and it would reduce the efficiency of
education in the process. The goal of education at this points switches from learning something
new and expanding ones knowledge to copying materials from elsewhere to finish homework
and get good grades. This is dangerous to humanity in some sense because these actions reduce
our ability to become creative, through understanding how things work first.
There have been many policies proposed to solve this issue. However, the biggest
problem to tackle down is that cheating on homework could be the perfect crime, in that it can be
done without leaving a trace. An approach that seems quite innovative and efficient was
proposed by Dr. Mitrano, the director of information-technology at Cornell University. She
proposed to make it easier for professors to handle such cases, and reform academic judicial
systems to make clearer distinctions between smaller violations, like homework copying, and
larger ones, like cheating on exams. And assign appropriate punishments for each
(Young,2010). In fact, this does sound reasonable as if the tests are given much higher
punishments, even though students may want to cheat on homework, they are somehow forced to
do them by themselves to make sure that they pass the exam. This indirect approach gives
priority to magnitude of punishments according to the crime with a higher probability to be
caught on an exam, which in fact can reduce the cheating overall.
It will be certainly interesting to see if this approach would work as expected when we
have enough experiments going on using this model.

Citation:
Young, J. R. (2010). High tech cheating abounds and professors bear some blame. Chron High Educ.
March, 28.