Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software • Hacker News Board

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#211

Post by ntsplnkv2 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 1:17 PM UTC

Tainnor wrote: post #106

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and I just derive the thing instead of remembering or looking it up. Most people can't do this or have a very hard time learning much easier things. I find that the crowd that talks about "pointless learning/testing/education" are often either ones that struggled mightily and were never really that smart, or they are so smart that they are above it.

I guess then the point becomes - in the age of computers, what's the value in memorising the quadratic formula without understanding where it comes from? It's much more important to know that there is a quadratic formula, or more fundamentally that every quadratic equation has 0-2 roots (exactly 2 if dealing with complex numbers) and what the different cases loom like (does the parabola touch or intersect the x-axis?…

I don't think it has anything to do with computers. Tests have had formula sheets for decades, the quadratic formula would typically be on there.

The importance has always been "how its applied." Tons of people failed classes despite knowing the formula. It has always been about the basic application.

I don't think many math tests consisted of "write down the quadratic formula" and that's it.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#212

Post by Anthony-G » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 1:18 PM UTC

hansvm wrote: post #156

powersnail wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of cheat does it prevent? I imagine it wouldn't be terribly hard to run the machines so that only one full-screen window is shown, or a user for whom the internet is disabled. Is that not enough?

> What kind of cheat does it prevent? Not much. When lockdowns first started I remember seeing _tons_ of first and second hand accounts of all the ways anti-cheating software failed when exposed to the real world. > I imagine it wouldn't be terribly hard to run the machines so that only one full-screen window is shown, or a user for whom the internet is disabled. Is that not enough? It can be a little tricky. We put…

I'd fail if I had to go through this. When thinking hard about a problem, I like to clear my mind of visual distractions by looking out at the sky and if I'm not near a window, simply close my eyes.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#213

Post by oarsinsync » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #177

hansvm wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What kind of cheat does it prevent? Not much. When lockdowns first started I remember seeing _tons_ of first and second hand accounts of all the ways anti-cheating software failed when exposed to the real world. > I imagine it wouldn't be terribly hard to run the machines so that only one full-screen window is shown, or a user for whom the internet is disabled. Is that not enough? It can be a little tricky. We put…

Next step: Webcam device which simulates student watching the screen :)

This already exists for anyone sufficiently motivated. It's a video input playing back a prerecorded video showing absolute attention, with the device IDs coded to pretend that it's a video camera rather than a generic video input (e.g. HDMI input)

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#214

Post by ntsplnkv2 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #112

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and I just derive the thing instead of remembering or looking it up. Most people can't do this or have a very hard time learning much easier things. I find that the crowd that talks about "pointless learning/testing/education" are often either ones that struggled mightily and were never really that smart, or they are so smart that they are above it.

That’s a bad example I guess. For something I struggled more with, take history. When I was in school it had a huge focus on trivia like dates, while I’m now fascinated by it, focusing on the cause and effect of things. But you can’t easily assess someone’s understanding of that side of things in a standardized manner, so it gets short shrift. Success is defined by the factors that least matter, and students, wanting…

History is certainly a better example, but dates DO matter - You can't talk about cause and effect if you don't know when things happened. Now perhaps the minutiae isn't quite as important - but what better way to learn the chronology than knowing the dates? It's fundamental to it.

> to see that most people can’t do it because it’s taught and tested poorly.

Or they just don't want to learn it. Some people don't like math. Or maybe people are lazy - they like it but can't overcome procrastination to really learn it. Or they are more focused on something else, like I was as an adolescent (computers.) There are certainly people who got sick, or went on vacation during that week of school, etc.

My point is, we always like to blame things that aren't actionable, i.e. "the system." It was just "taught poorly." There are certainly cases of that being the truth, but if you look at the time constraints and all other details, it's hard to just blame the system. How do you actually fix the system?

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#215

Post by eatthoselemons » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

unishark wrote: post #145

poulsbohemian wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious to learn your option on cheating - does it actually matter? What I mean is - certainly you don't want to harm the reputation of your school, and you want your students to have actually learned the material and be prepared for whatever they do in life that requires that knowledge... but what I'm wondering is... if there's presumably some tiny percentage of a class that is going to actually cheat…

One third of the students on my last exam cheated (at least, these were the ones that gave an identical answer to one of the problems, including identical minor typos). I was using the tools described in the article, but apparently I was being too lax about enforcing the 360 degree views or something as they clearly colluded to find a way to share answers anyway.

I feel like this hits the real problem, figure out a better way to prevent cheating and a better cheat will be made.

It should instead be worked on making cheat resistant material

(unfortunately I don't know how to do it but I feel like the later is where the energy/brainstorming should be spent)

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#216

Post by gravypod » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #199

gravypod wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most code reviews I've done at work take between 5 minutes to 10 minutes. To assume the worst possible case of 200 students, 20 deliverable per student, and a 10 minutes meeting per MR you'd be at ~28 days (~84 8hr-days). Get 1 TA and you now have 42 days of the semester dedicated to 1:1 time (35%) and the remainder of the semester dedicated to producing learning content. Learning content (lecture videos, etc) can be…

10 to 30% pass rate? And that was very high compared to other departments? Do you mind sharing roughly where this was (country and quality of university)? I thought we were in an era of grade inflation where everyone gets an A.

This was course a 300-level test course compared to a 300-level test course from these other departments. The hope is that when they become "real" courses the pass rate is higher. I think this counts people who are re-taking the course or who dropped it as failing. We had ~50% of our class drop within the first month.

Part of it was related to their expectations of the course: "you mean I have to write code and the class is based off of that and not memorizing test answers? I'm out"

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#217

Post by eatthoselemons » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 1:46 PM UTC

YungSven wrote: post #166

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is less that students can look up answers online, its that they could hand the laptop to someone experienced and have them complete the exam for the student. An ideal situation would be allowing students to use online resources but not to communicate with other people during the exam.

My university in Germany uses this approach. We have to livestream ourselves from the side so the supervisor can see the whole desk, before each exam we have to authenticate with our Student ID so nobody else can write the test for us and we are allowed to use everything - except direct communication. This form of testing is called "Open Books" or "Open Material". Before the pandemic we were allowed to bring our book…

Designing tests for open book seems to be a good way to

a) make cheating in effective, (no need to sneak in a formula sheet when everyone has it)

b) More like the real world, I always have google at my fingertips, it is just how efficiently I can use google and my existing knowledge to solve a problem

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#218

Post by bitwize » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

sjy wrote: post #60

bitwize wrote: post #7

Makes me glad for things like the Stevens Honor System, which was how exams were administered at Stevens Institute of Technology. Basically, all work submitted, whether tests or homework, require a pledge with a signature that the work is your own and you didn't cheat. Violations of the honor system -- cheating, plagiarism, etc. could be reported by students or faculty and would be investigated by the Honor Board wit…

Is there a school out there that doesn’t investigate and punish students who cheat or plagiarise? There are certainly differences in strictness, but I thought the “honor code” you describe was a basic policy at all institutes of higher education, regardless of the normal mode of assessment.

Yes, obviously they do. I was trying to emphasize that just because exams are unproctored at Stevens, doesn't mean that there are no systems in place for detecting and disciplining cheaters.

The honor system is also about expectations. Other universities expect you to cheat, and put extensive administrative controls in place to prevent that. The Stevens Honor System expects you to be honest, and to hold yourself and your peers accountable. So investigations and hearings for honor code violations are conducted by students, not staff. The administration doesn't get involved until it comes time for penalty enforcement.

So yeah, the end result is the same as any university: you can not expect it to bode well for your academic career if you cheat or plagiarize. But the structure is different, as is who ultimately bears responsibility for inquiring and investigating claims of academic dishonesty.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#219

Post by 908B64B197 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 1:59 PM UTC

aaplok wrote: post #18

908B64B197 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average GPA increased by several points. The credibility of your school went down by the same amount. If cheating is rampant, either the culture is broken or you are selecting students wrong.

> The credibility of your school went down by the same amount. That was the point I was trying to make. This is not a problem of a single school, or a single university. This is happening across the sector. The success of contract cheating websites, and the inability of universities worldwide to deal with them, attest to that. > If cheating is rampant, either the culture is broken or you are selecting students wrong.…

> A kid whose family borrowed money to send them study in a Western institution might not see honor as their top priority. It is not a student selection problem: the culture is broken all the way down.

I've heard of rampant cheating abroad, and it's part of the reason I believe some foreign degrees to be worthless. Truth is western institutions shouldn't admit from places where cheating is rampant. Else we're pretty much encouraging this broken culture.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#220

Post by 908B64B197 » Tue, Nov 10, 2020, 2:14 PM UTC

vengefulduck wrote: post #161

olyjohn wrote: post #128

I feel so bad for the students that have to deal with this. I worked at a Community College in IT for a while. Students would come into a lab that was specifically set up for testing. The anti-cheating software was such total trash, it would crash, crash the browser, crash the whole system. Students would have to start testing over... At least twice a month, their systems would be down, and nobody could take tests at…

Just last week I had to help my sister reinstall windows because she used respondus and now her computer blue screens every time she turns on her webcam. It runs as root and appears to mess with the kernel, so a clean reinstall seemed like the only solution. It’s really so much worse than I imagined at this point I’d classify this software as straight up malware.

This is one of the reasons I'm happy closed platforms like iOS and Windows 10S are getting more and more mainstream. They'll simply prevent these poorly written drivers from getting written in the first place.