When students have little to lose and a great deal to gain by cheating, some of them will do so. Students have even less to lose if caught cheating in remote online courses than in face-to- face courses, and so are more likely to cheat in online courses. This paper describes an electronic ‘watermarking’ system that we have used to detect a particular form of cheating in remote online exams. Findings from the use of the system raise some disturbing questions about the practice of distance education and education in general.

Keywords: assessment, authentication, distance learning