Using Technology to Cheat

Abstract

Technology is growing at an exponential rate; this presents many challenges and advantages to online and campus students alike. The potential and ability to cheat is greatly increased. In the days before this "technology boom" answers were being written on hands, arms, and anything else that was capable of being marked on. Now cheating is more than easy. With mp3 players, camera phones and PDA's cheating is literally just a click away! Team A will show how technology has increased by showing the various different ways to cheat, what students think about cheating, and what teachers are doing to prevent it.

Using Technology to cheat

For as long as there has been some kind of testing process for validating intellect or capability, there have been techniques for cheating the system. In recent decades, students found it all too easy to write cheat notes on hands, arms, legs, hats and books. In those years however, the internet wasn't available so world-wide communications did not lend themselves to aid would-be cheaters.

Technology has progressed and so has the modern student. Backpacks are now filled with Personal Digital Assistants, MP3 Players, Cell phones and laptops instead of notebooks and #2 pencils. The ease at which students can now wirelessly download electronic information from the internet has created an entire generation of students whose goal is not only to pass the class, but to pass the class with as little effort as possible.

Recent studies show that even though cheating has been around among students since the dawning of organized schooling, the increase in cheating and the number of students who approve of cheating is on the rise. 70% of both college and high school students admit to cheating at some time or another. This is a 14% increase from what students said in 1993 where 56% admitted to cheating, and today's poll for cheaters dwarf the 23% of students in 1963 who admitted to cheating.(Vencat, Overdorf & Adams, 2006)

Current Cheating Techniques

Advancements in technology have created vast possibilities when it comes to cheating on tests and assignments. The modern student is not as innocent as they once were. Modern students are extremely mischievous and creative when it comes to finding ways to get ahead without doing hard work. In the mid 1990's, the internet was becoming very popular and search engines were just around the corner. Students began finding pre-written papers online and started turning them in as original works. The ability to download pre-written research papers evolved into an online treasure-trove of essays and papers available for free or at a nominal price. Sites such as PlanetPapers.com, BigNerds.com, Cheater.com and the popular SchoolSucks.com whose motto is "Download your workload" (APA) began to spring up. The industry of pre-written material progressed and soon these sites started offering original written works for $5.95 per page. These papers were found to be written by drop-out English majors and were available to be emailed directly to your inbox. A whole internet society of cheaters was born and until recently thrived, allowing the owners of the websites to make profit at the expense of the original authors (Plotz, 1999)

The 1990's was a technologic era of advancement for large corporations such as Microsoft, Cisco and Oracle. The advancements of these companies brought about the necessity to have highly trained and qualified individuals take certification test to prove their knowledge. Coupled with standardized tests such as the SAT, ACT and MCAT to name a few, online "Brain dumps" started to become popular. The phrase "brain dump" refers to confidential information relating to examinations which is obtained by examinees who memorize, then "dump" (record), the information after the examination. "Brain Dumps" allowed for an entire generation of untrained, lacking individuals the opportunity to obtain certifications by simply memorizing a list of hundreds of questions they may be on the test. Advancements in testing were made, but through shear resilience, brain dumps remained a staple of the certification world and in the end lessened the popularity and clout having a certification once held.

Fast-forward past the Y2K hysteria and you'll find that the modern student is now using small electronic devices to cheat while taking tests in the classroom. (Leake, 1995)These devices range from handheld Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), portable music players such as the Apple iPod, cell phones equipped with blue-tooth hands-free transmitters and camera as well as miniature storage devices capable of transmitting large amounts of data quickly without notice. The student of today is not technically illiterate as their parents once were. They are techno-geeks capable of doing pretty much anything they have their hearts set on. It has been documented for students to record notes for playback using their iPods while in class. Cell phones have been used to communicate with students and accomplices located in the library whereby answers can be researched. Digital cameras on cell phones can take exact copies of test material to be posted on the internet for all to see. In 2005, a 17 year old student in Sugarland, Texas placed a keystroke logger onto a teacher's computer and recorded everything that was typed. (Boone, 2007) This included the teacher's password and allowed the student to steal and sell the teacher's test until he was caught and charged with a misdemeanor. (APA - Proquest) Modern cheating is not limited to bringing devices into the classroom. Advancements in printing and scanning devices have allowed crib sheets to be printed on the back of Mento's wrappers and water bottles. Gone is the day of writing notes on the baseball cap or forearm.

Institutes Fight Back

With students becoming more and more technically equipped to cheat at school, institutes are also becoming just as creative to combat the technical onslaught. The easiest thing for an institute to do to prevent electronic cheating is to ban devices such as iPods, PDAs, cell phones and advanced scientific calculators. These devices represent a high percentage of the "in-class" cheating that goes on.

The drawback to banning iPods, PDA's, cell