Nobody wants students cheating in their online class, yet an estimated 75% of students have admitted to cheating during their college career, and according to some studies online assessment makes cheating easier. The problem is not only one of practical importance for educators, it is one of growing importance to instructional technologists, administrators, and anyone else with a vested interest in the validity and reputation of distance education and technology-enhanced teaching.
A number of environmental factors are particularly salient in online courses, such as ambiguity of definitions of cheating, actual or perceptual "distance," level of instructor-student interaction, individual relevance or meaningfulness of activities and assessments, etc. Additionally, there are a number of more technical and technological factors that can increase or decrease both a student's propensity to cheat, and his/her ability to cheat.
By considering these technical, methodological, and environmental factors, we have developed a rubric to assess online courses and report on potential factors that may increase or decrease the "cheatability" of online courses from design to delivery.