Identifying And Protecting eLearning Systems From Corrupt Use And Plagiarism

• Autores: Emil Marais, David Argles, Basie von Solms
• Localización: International journal of the computer, the internet and management, ISSN 0858-7027, Vol. 14, Nº. 1 (AGO), 2006 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Suplemento 1: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on eLearning for Knowledge-Based Society), págs. 13-13
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • eLearning systems are becoming the main support medium in education. To enable an eLearning system to protect the academic integrity of the education provider, it is critical to address security issues and to protect the integrity of the system. (von Solms, 2004) eLearning systems have unique security issues and therefore require additional checks and balances to protect the integrity of the system. Not all of these issues are addressed by web security research although a well-designed system will be more secure. In this paper, security issues specific to eLearning systems will be identified and solutions to these problems given. Current commercial systems and security research do not address these issues competently and therefore these issues need to be addressed. In this paper, data obtained from practical assignment submissions showing that plagiarism is a problem in eLearning systems will also be presented. The problem can be minimized by applying the solutions presented in this paper and including certain tools and reporting functions that enable course administrators to be alerted of corrupt use. From the data presented in this paper, we will show an alarming number of users submitting similar assignments that can be proven to be copied from only a few sources. These copy groups are not desirable in an eLearning system where we want to make sure that students do their own work with summative assessments. The security issues acknowledged in this paper have been identified from experience working with different eLearning systems that provide the primary support for several programming courses. eLearning systems are an excellent tool to ease the administration burden of the course presenter and to provide support for students but we need to address the issues identified in this paper to allow it to take the place of conventional assessments while protecting the integrity of academic information.