Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images • Hacker News Board

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#441

Post by whatatita » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:34 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #333

mfarris wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HEIC was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group as an open standard. Apple was early in supporting the standard. Windows, Android, others have followed. More to come. When venting one's spleen, it's best to be at least a tiny bit correct.

>HEIC was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group as an open standard. It’s hard to call something an “open standard” if anyone who wishes to use it needs to license patents from nokia. ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_F... under “licensing”)

> It’s hard to call something an “open standard” if anyone who wishes to use it needs to license patents from nokia.

If something needs a licence, it isn't open. I mean, it literally doesn't meet the definition of open.

What's more, if the standard was open, then that would be great, but adopting it so soon and setting it to be the default is woefully shortsighted.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#442

Post by jchw » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:36 PM UTC

MikusR wrote: post #330

jchw wrote: post #223

OK, I honestly don’t blame them for not supporting HEIC yet. What I do blame them for is clearly not testing their system against the software and hardware students will be using. There would’ve been no problems at all if the system handled the problem and explained how to resolve it, but it sounds like it failed in a somewhat more silent fashion. Without question, they should be resolving this problem on their end.

They did not anticipate idiots renaming files to "convert" them.

I dunno how we can expect ordinary people to fully understand what’s going on and how to fix it without any guidance.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#443

Post by _snsh » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:39 PM UTC

whatatita wrote: post #429

_snsh wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I may restate your position: "If a student uploads an image in the wrong format then it is acceptable for their entire test to be invalid and they can retake the entire exam." Yes, being able to understand the conditions should maybe be part of passing the test. Like I said, could the upload form have handled this better? Sure, although I have not read enough to understand if this was actually the upload form fa…

> Yes, being able to understand the conditions should maybe be part of passing the test. I agree, when It's part of the subject in test. I don't see any reasonable cause for a student to have to know about file types to submit a test, if that test isn't about file types. I don't, for example, expect my doctor to know how to convert an image file because that's not his job. > The OP article claims "Spencer ... tried t…

>I agree, when It's part of the subject in test. I don't see any reasonable cause for a student to have to know about file types to submit a test, if that test isn't about file types. I don't, for example, expect my doctor to know how to convert an image file because that's not his job.

Understanding the conditions of your test is part of the test. And your doctor doesn't have to know. His toolchain forces him to use certain programs and settings. If anything is set up wrong, your MRI image is just a worthless CD-R.

>This highlights the level of knowledge the users of this application have in this area. The developers should have made it Painfully Clear that uploading directly from an iPhone isn't supported.

They did. The supported file formats were clearly stated. Your issue here is with apple.

>I agree they should learn this stuff, but don't think it should cost them their grade to do so.

It doesn't. They can retake the test without punishment.

>Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't increase public understanding of these "slightly-technical" topics but I think we're a long way off and we can't expect that understanding just yet.

I disagree. The sooner people learn that renaming a file does not constitute conversion the better. When I was a student 15 years ago it was painfully clear you could not upload the 50MB .tif file your scanner spat out (silly websites at the time would just not take 50MB uploads most of the time...). I think this "slightly-technical" knowledge is something akin to correct spelling and grammar. It's fine if you disagree but, in my opinion (even if that was not the intent of the college board), this is not a bad lesson to teach.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#444

Post by mr_toad » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:40 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #81

oefrha wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tried a standard input tag with the proper accept attribute Selected a HEIC file from Photos in Safari, the selected image was automatically converted to JPEG. Ten bucks says College Board programmer(s) failed to do the most basic and standard filtering. Edit: Like a sibling comment said, the accept attribute actually isn't necessary; even PNG images (e.g. screenshots) from Photos are converted to JPEG automatically.…

> Ten bucks says College Board programmer(s) failed to do the most basic and standard filtering. Why is it a failure of the college board to put "accept="image/jpeg"", instead of iOS which failed to default to the more standardized jpeg format when HEIC was not specified? HEIC is a newer format which fewer systems support. iOS / Safari should default to JPEG in this case.

If I wanted to upload raw photos from my camera to a generic file storage site and they all got magically converted to jpeg because the browser thought that was the best image format, I’d be pretty pissed off. Browsers should follow standards.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#445

Post by munk-a » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:42 PM UTC

duskwuff wrote: post #347

munk-a wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their approach to supporting the new formats is actually quite easy to work with and properly defined input tags will just automagically trigger file conversions on the iOS side. I also really dislike Apple's usual "my way or the highway approach" (it's causing my nephews serious issues since some of their remote learning tools use flash which Apple refuses to support) but in this case they are using the right approa…

> it's causing my nephews serious issues since some of their remote learning tools use flash which Apple refuses to support That's really not Apple's problem. Flash Player is dead . Adobe has declared that all support for the plugin will end in December 2020, and every major web browser has indicated that they intend to discontinue support for the plugin in advance of that date. Some desktop browsers (including Chrom…

As a developer I'm totally onboard with Flash having died a while back - and these tools educational suites really shouldn't have anything to do with Flash... All that said, when Apple killed Flash they did it unilaterally and really did break a lot of existing systems, if this pandemic was happening a decade ago I'd absolutely be on an Apple hate train since the sudden drop of support forced people to scramble.

At this point though, Flash is known to be dead and buried and folks that haven't migrated off of it have made their own beds[1].

1. ...And unfortunately caused a lot of headache for quite a few parents with multiple children that are trying to let all their children learn concurrently on different devices they have around the house.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#446

Post by mchan889 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:42 PM UTC

gbear605 wrote: post #382

qubex wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was covered by a two-year IB (International Baccalaureate) course in Computer Science running from 1997 until 1998. I attended a private school (the International School of Milan).

I don’t know the IB system, but AP tests are equivalent to testing students on a first semester college class. In computer science in the US, that means basic data structures and simple algorithms, and it’s been that way for the last thirty five years at least.

I generally don't like to say people are making things up, however there is a lot of mythology around how much work IB students do. I've frequently seen IB students while I was in undergrad boasting about their level of proficiency, despite it seldom being supported.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#447

Post by judge2020 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:47 PM UTC

_snsh wrote: post #443

whatatita wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, being able to understand the conditions should maybe be part of passing the test. I agree, when It's part of the subject in test. I don't see any reasonable cause for a student to have to know about file types to submit a test, if that test isn't about file types. I don't, for example, expect my doctor to know how to convert an image file because that's not his job. > The OP article claims "Spencer ... tried t…

>I agree, when It's part of the subject in test. I don't see any reasonable cause for a student to have to know about file types to submit a test, if that test isn't about file types. I don't, for example, expect my doctor to know how to convert an image file because that's not his job. Understanding the conditions of your test is part of the test. And your doctor doesn't have to know. His toolchain forces him to use…

You're still supporting that computer knowledge of what image file formats are and how to convert them should be part of the test. They can learn that later when their high school or college makes them take basic computer classes (hopefully), right now they just want to upload their image.

Either Apple or College Board is at fault here but it isn't the user.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#448

Post by radlad » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:48 PM UTC

_snsh wrote: post #438

whatatita wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Knowing a file type is an "esoteric technical requirement" ? Yes, when it is outside of the scope of the test. Unless they're testing the students on their knowledge of data storage, or similar, this is out of scope.

Well, I disagree. I think "media competence" is more important than spelling or grammar and should be something expected of someone entering tertiary education.

But that's not what the test is about. It's not a category on the test.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#449

Post by duskwuff » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:50 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #445

duskwuff wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's causing my nephews serious issues since some of their remote learning tools use flash which Apple refuses to support That's really not Apple's problem. Flash Player is dead . Adobe has declared that all support for the plugin will end in December 2020, and every major web browser has indicated that they intend to discontinue support for the plugin in advance of that date. Some desktop browsers (including Chrom…

As a developer I'm totally onboard with Flash having died a while back - and these tools educational suites really shouldn't have anything to do with Flash... All that said, when Apple killed Flash they did it unilaterally and really did break a lot of existing systems, if this pandemic was happening a decade ago I'd absolutely be on an Apple hate train since the sudden drop of support forced people to scramble. At t…

> when Apple killed Flash they did it unilaterally and really did break a lot of existing systems

What are you referring to when you say "when Apple killed Flash"?

The big outcry was back when Apple made it clear that they would never add Flash support to iOS. But that support never existed in the first place -- one can hardly "kill" something which was never alive.

Desktop Safari still supports Flash, for now. It's off by default (with a "click to enable" icon), but that's no different from how it's handled in other browsers. All signs indicate that they intend to remove Flash support with the next major release, but that just puts them on the same track as everyone else.

Re: Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

#450

Post by lopmotr » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:53 PM UTC

xienyc wrote: post #101

coffeefirst wrote: post #49

"Our system broke, you're screwed now, sorry" is never an acceptable answer. Do they really not have anyone who knows how to get stuff done? 1. Take the files and figure out what to do with them so they can be read. This isn't a hard problem. 2. Ask everyone affected to email you the photo or a new photo of the documents. We'll just take it on trust that you do so honestly because there's no way you would've seen thi…

>"Our system broke, you're screwed now, sorry" is never an acceptable answer. That's not what happened at all. The college board admitted their fault and are letting students take the test again. Even without that, they mentioned in their FAQ that JPEGs and PNGs are the only file types acceptable and even sent out a tweet (which should have been an email) a week before especially for iPhone users to let them know how…

The FAQ and tweet are clearly the wrong way to communicate such vital information. Neither are required instructions for students. The FAQ is explicitly labeled as being for educators, not students. Neither explains the consequences of doing it wrong and make it sound like something minor such as having to choose a different option if it doesn't work. If I was serious about something like an exam, I'd read all the actual rules and ignore the "important tips" for a "smooth experience" or other crap that's always excessive and usually useless anyway.

It sounds like either they actually didn't know it would crash so badly or they were too embarrassed to admit having such a serious bug but wanted to quietly steer people away from encountering it without them knowing they dodged a bullet. If the latter, then the College Board was acting maliciously to protect their reputation which is really bad.