MANSOOR is a graduate student at a university in Illinois in the United States. Most of his assignments are online. Although, he gets lots of assignments, he often has a lot of free time. The reason being that he is able to find answers to most of the homework questions online, and he simply moulds them in such a way that they cannot be recognized as someone else's work. That's what he does most of the time. Online education is growing rapidly and replacing conventional teaching methodologies. This has revolutionized the system of education. This is not only making education accessible to everyone, but also creating ease of learning for people. At the same time, students are leaning toward online search engines for completing homework and assigned projects and tasks. Not only that, students can now find online software which converts copied work into a different form so that it cannot be recognized by plagiarism check software. But, online education cannot be solely blamed for promoting academic dishonesty. Conventional education is also prone to dishonesty. Students become disloyal if they feel that the instructor does not verify their work for plagiarism. This also means that apart from warning students to produce original work, schools must also make them aware of the plagiarism check policies of the institution. Most students who are dishonest are not found out mainly because many instructors do not use plagiarism checkers. This means that online homework and assignment submission software should be equipped with plagiarism check software to motivate students to be honest in their work. Online education is a far easier way of teaching students, by equipping them with real knowledge, instead of imaginary concepts from old books. This has helped to make school work easy and comfortable for students as well as teachers. The argument that online education promotes academic dishonesty is quite a debatable topic, since everything has its pros and cons. The main issue confronting online education is the wide content available to students via the Internet which contains most of the answers to assignment questions and homework. This ease of access has led more and more students to use their laptops and PCs to solve questions instead of their brains. This has also led to ease of sharing content among students which makes them dishonest in their work. It is not online education that is to be blamed, but rather the schools and universities that do not scan submissions for plagiarism. This calls for institutions to make instructors aware of technology in order to prevent students from being unfair in their work. It is not only the type of education that promotes dishonesty among students but also the methodology used by teachers and instructors. This implies that if students are taught in a stress-free environment and subjects are easy to understand, this can prevent academic dishonesty. Furthermore, students should not be given a lot of homework, because doing so can cause them to look for shortcuts to complete the allotted work. Students should also not be stressed beyond their capability, as this will also cause them to seek help from other students in completing their work. In summary, we should not give students excessive freedom so that they start cheating to complete their work. At the same time, we should make them aware that we have the means to check their work for plagiarism. We cannot blame online education for academic dishonesty. We must try to make students aware of the importance of being honest in the work they do which will help them throughout their life. Mohammed Abdul Majid, Purdue University,
