Therefore, if you’re not concerned so much that you’re going to cheat but that other students in your online program are, then you’ll want to make sure you attend an online school with a solid reputation. If cheating is easy to do and therefore rampant in an online school setting (especially a for-profit school), it can bring down the overall quality of the school itself and thus the quality of your degree. Not all online colleges are breeding grounds for cheating, and if they are, that’s probably a school you’ll want to avoid. This can make online schools more vulnerable to cheating, but because professors are aware this can happen, they often go that extra step to check if their students are being honest.Ĭheating And Academic Integrity Go Hand-In-Hand Students may also fear cheating in this way in a physical classroom because if they do get caught, they’d have to face the professor in person, creating a stronger sense of accountability for the student, but may not be as worried in an online class. At the very least, they can sense a disconnect or inconsistency in their papers. In a physical classroom, this type of plagiarism may be easier to recognize as most professors can tell if the student’s writing reflects their personality or not. This may lead some students to think that a little cheating can go a long way in an online class, earning you an easy A. These days, students are also paying for writers to write their essays and papers for them, which is a form of plagiarism many professors may not be aware of or pick up on, as the writing is still original. These are just some of the ways students may think about cheating in an online class.Ĭonsidering plagiarism is one of the most common forms of cheating in an institution of higher education, students may find other ways around writing that essay than copying and pasting paragraphs from sources online. Although you won’t be able to peek at someone else’s test to steal an answer, couldn’t you look up answers while taking an online test? What about asking a friend to take a quiz for you? And isn’t plagiarism much easier to do since your teacher has never met you in person? That being said, some students may wonder if certain types of cheating are a lot easier to get away with in an online class than it would be in a physical classroom. If you cheat, you can risk failing in your class, being put on academic probation, or getting kicked out of school. Yet, cheating in a college course can actually leave you with more worries than had you not cheated in the first place. By cheating, they can put some of their worries aside. It may not be necessarily because they want to break the rules, but because they’ve been overwhelmed in their coursework and they want to make sure their grades are not jeopardized. Students may cheat in their classes for all kinds of reasons. But here’s why it’s wrong to think that way and why you should think twice before you attempt cheating in an online course. In an online program, students may think it is easier to get away with cheating, or that it’s much more common among students. And, whether they have or haven’t, they may wonder, “Can you cheat on online classes?” as it may seem easier to do so than in a regular classroom environment.īut cheating not only puts you at risk of facing serious consequences, it also can bring down the overall reputation of your school. Even some of the best students may admit to having cheated at some point in their academic career.