What are our main concerns regarding academic dishonesty in Massive Online Open Courses? As illustrated by the recent NY Times article, Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) have recently gained a lot of attention because of their new model for educating students.

What are the main concerns regarding academic dishonesty in Massive Online Open Courses?  It appears to me that academic dishonesty may be difficult to police for an online course.  Is this correct?
I think that the question is somewhat misleading. Ethics only factor into a very small percentage of students in Massively Open Online Courses (MOOC's). Most students who participate in MOOC's are only taking the course to learn something. Academic integrity is more of an issue when the students are taking the course for some external reason. 

Some possible external reasons are:


Enrolled in the course through the university, and receiving credit for the course
Required to take the course by an employer
Taking the course as a pre-requisite for another course or program


In each of these situations, the role of verifying learning seems like it would be outside of the course itself. If students choose to cheat, it does not necessarily reflect poorly on the course or the program, but rather reflects poorly on the student.

TL;DR - Ethical concerns only matter for students who are required to take the course. The people requiring them to take the course are responsible for ensuring their academic integrity.