10 time Increase in Cheating at Canadian Universities
Pandemic Online Cheating
The pandemic lockdown has forced Universities to go online with everything, including exams and tutorials. This past week a number of articles have appeared in the Canadian press that indicate a huge increase in students suspected of cheating.
Much as in competitive chess, there has always existed cheating in Universities. But since the pandemic has forced the university classroom to move online, as well as its testing and grading systems, things have gotten out of control. (Ditto online chess. Other similarities exist.)
FIDE has been toying with a combination of remote proctoring software/webcam surveillance, but most universities seem to have given up on this as being too invasive. Student union complaints and legality issues concerning privacy violations have been taken very seriously.
FIDE is well aware of these legal issues, but the leadership considers that there is no good way around this problem. Either the players accept to forfeit certain rights or they don’t get to play. (FIDE is insisting on ignoring its own constitution, as otherwise FIDE must give up all together any prospect of organizing online chess.)
Of course, many chess players – both amateur and professional – don’t accept FIDE’s point of view, and it will be interesting to see how far FIDE is willing to go and trample on individual rights and violate its own constitution as FIDE’s leadership turns its attention to the online world.
For the moment, since much of the FIDE leadership grew up in the communist Soviet Union (or its satellites), they do not see a problem with this and are only too happy to force their ‘solution’ to online cheating on the rest of the chess world.
