Advocate for the Protection of Online Learning Integrity

Spring
2022
Resolution Number
13.07
 
Contact
Assigned to
President
Online Education Committee
Category
General Concerns
Status
Assigned

Whereas, During the last decade, there has been significant support from the California Legislature for online and distance education to improve access to California community colleges, and during the COVID-19 pandemic online course offerings at California community colleges have increased dramatically, and enrollment trends indicate a continued increased interest in online learning;

Whereas, Faculty have engaged in professional learning including strategies, pedagogies, and course design for online learning, all while meeting federal and state regulations to provide sustainable and flexible access to college in order to meet the increasing demand for high quality remote learning;

Whereas, The sharp increase in online learning has also created an economic market for educational fraud where companies sell their services to take courses on behalf of students for a fee or companies masquerade as study sites but in practice are fraud libraries providing paying users answers to assignments or access to essays for sale as documented in reporting from The Los Angeles Times [1], The Atlantic [2], and The Hechinger Report [3] and thus violate the integrity of degrees and security of college enterprise systems; and

Whereas, It is evident that online education is here to stay and the solution to the nefarious mischiefs caused by this growing cottage industry of fraud is to innovate and protect the integrity of online courses and enterprise systems, not to backtrack from this inclusive learning modality;

Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges advocate with the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office for vital resources to support local IT departments in the implementation of additional online learning protections such as multifactor authentication or IP address monitoring to help protect against educational fraud; and

Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges advocate with the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office for continued and expanded support of professional learning to gain additional pedagogical skills to help prevent and identify educational fraud of this nature.    

MSC


1. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-10-24/online-cheating-apps-r…
2. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/11/cheating-through-…
3. https://hechingerreport.org/another-problem-with-shifting-education-onl…