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College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

voiceofsandiego.org

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Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#91
post #90

Voice of San Diego has been doing some great reporting. This is yet another example. Profs who use these things are examples of teachers who just don't care enough to revamp their courses to involve more project, critical-thinking assignments, or exams where cheating won't help. They don't want to do the work to adjust the course for remote learning, and just give the course that they always teach, and do whatever it…

This has been my experience in college so far. My technical college I was at before had better policies for online learning and preventing heating by just making you work more so that cheating would just make it harder toward the end.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#92
Why are we building exams that are only valid if people don't use google? Will google suddenly disappear when I get a job? Modern exams should require me to use google.

What we need is a way to have every exam question be unique to each student. If a student google the "how to" and then does it, great!

Is it fitting that Vernor Vinge wrote about this in Rainbows End [1]? He was a professor at SDSU.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#94
post #86

I found myself brewing with rage while reading this article. The approach of closely inspecting a student's words & physical actions while taking a test just feels...dated. Ancient. Anachronistic. Embarrassing. In the real world of 2020+, almost everyone has a portable Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in their pocket. Let people use calculators. Heck, let people use Wikipedia! If they copy an incorrect fact from Wiki…

There are, they just cost a heck of a lot more. You can no longer have a course taught for a $3000 adjunct.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#95
post #86

I found myself brewing with rage while reading this article. The approach of closely inspecting a student's words & physical actions while taking a test just feels...dated. Ancient. Anachronistic. Embarrassing. In the real world of 2020+, almost everyone has a portable Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in their pocket. Let people use calculators. Heck, let people use Wikipedia! If they copy an incorrect fact from Wiki…

> move to live oral exams. Written long-form essays.

Yes. The application of principles, concepts and information is not terribly difficult to test in either a timed or take home setting.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#97

Comp Sci majors are the ones that are definitely beating the system though. Speaking from experience.

Ah yes. Did you use Ghidra, IDA Pro, Binary Ninja, Hopper Disassembler, Radare2/Cutter, or something else? How many bytes did you have to modify?

Put it on your resume.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#98
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> What stopped people from having someone else do their take home tests before the pandemic? Nothing except these tests were not take home prior to COVID. >> On a more constructive note, it seems pretty simple to require some portion of responses to reference the lectures such that only someone who attended the class in this semester would be able to correctly answer, for example "use the method we discussed in the…

> Nothing except these tests were not take home prior to COVID. Take home tests were definitely a thing before covid. > So you are expecting the student to remember 100% of what they heard in the online classes? Or more likely the student would write down these details and handle it to the cheater to use during the take home exam. Or the cheater would "do X". In most cases the one doing the helping is not a current s…

> Take home tests were definitely a thing before covid.

Yes, and they work pretty well for some subjects. But not for others.

> ... that is super suspicious.

But suspicion is not enough to take disciplinary measures.

In many cases, there really is no solution that is privacy-preserving, anti-cheating, covid-safe and affordable.

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#99
post #86

I found myself brewing with rage while reading this article. The approach of closely inspecting a student's words & physical actions while taking a test just feels...dated. Ancient. Anachronistic. Embarrassing. In the real world of 2020+, almost everyone has a portable Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in their pocket. Let people use calculators. Heck, let people use Wikipedia! If they copy an incorrect fact from Wiki…

All good points. If these types of monitors are being used, then clearly the tests are flawed.

The hardest test I ever took was the AI final at CMU. Open book. Books didn't help :(

Re: College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software

#100

Comp Sci majors are the ones that are definitely beating the system though. Speaking from experience.

Software people in general like "hacks". We game hiring process by reading books like "Cracking the coding interview". However, the hiring process is broken but that is a different story.

I worked super hard in school, did well and pulled several all nighters. I work at an enterprise now and my algorithm knowledge is useless. I just build enterprise web applications, which is fine.

In software any job you take you will be learning new stuff and new way of doing things. I gained much more from classes that focused on building actual working projects instead of strict algorithms and testing. In our AI class we had to pick an AI algo and implement it in a popular game, one of the best experiences in school.

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