College students are learning hard lessons about anti-cheating software • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by brewdad » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

plif wrote: post #254

colechristensen wrote: post #189

Fuck grades. They were already a problem in universities and this is their final and worst form. University systems have the major problem that a significant portion of students are only there for a degree, and their participation is playing the game in order to get that piece of paper, and the GPA number rating them. The core of this problem is the question “will this be on the exam?” Testing of course can be an imp…

Your last sentence nailed it: this is a society problem, not a university problem. It's insane how much emphasis is put on these measures by parents from a very young age. School boards here, and I'm sure many other places, decided to nix grades from March onwards after the pandemic hit. The announcement wasn't made until closer to the end of the term. I remember some parents being furious claiming that their kids "w…

My son is applying to universities now. Last spring he was taking 5 AP courses out of 8 required classes. The statewide decision to go to pass/fail cost him hugely in his weighted GPA, as he would have aced all 5 classes. Given that he attends a high school that is average at best, it really could have made a difference for him.

Fortunately, he navigated the mess that was AP testing last spring and his test scores prove that he knew the material but as a parent who watched my kid work so hard, even through the remote learning portion, it was quite stressful for both of us.

Now we wait to hear from the initial wave of applications. The system, as it stands, sucks but it is the system we have. Perhaps the great experiment starting with the class of 2021 may drive changes to make it better.

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

#282

Post by m463 » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

cowmoo728 wrote: post #230

throwaway201103 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you only have linux computers at home and can't run their spyware?

If you have a linux computer you can boot from usb or a second drive to run windows. That's what I did when I had to take exams using Proctortrack.

step one: purchase windows

honestly, I think the question was more of "what should the educators do?" not "what should the student do?

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

#283

Post by perched_robin » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

justin_oaks wrote: post #24

perched_robin wrote: post #21

Burn the universities to the ground.

Interesting strategy. What after that?

Build a replacement, wait for it to become exploitative, burn it to the ground, repeat.

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

#284

Post by delaynomore » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

pizzaknife wrote: post #247

bzb6 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It worked even finer for those who paid someone else to do the test for them.

How does one fib proficiency in a role as an individual contributor? I mean after school is through? I have been a software engineer for 14years. I am self taught with only a 2yr degree i completed my 4th year into this career. Can a line in resume(a degree mention) remedy a failed technical screening process? Personal experience : I have declined several MD CS holders this year alone for positions because their demo…

People cheat for all kinds of reasons. I'd say in many cases it bears little or no relevance to their proficiency as an IC. For example, I've seen people cheat in a Computer History class (compsci elective) presumably because they just want an easy A to push up the GPA. It doesn't necessarily mean they can't code.

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

#285

Post by dghlsakjg » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 5:09 PM UTC

gen220 wrote: post #249

Analemma_ wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> University systems have the major problem that a significant portion of students are only there for a degree, and their participation is playing the game in order to get that piece of paper, and the GPA number rating them. In defense of the students, they're just following the incentive gradient in front of them. For all the romantic notions about how college should be optimized for exploration and "real learning",…

Let’s not fail to mention the $100k elephant in the room :). It’s very hard to focus on real learning when your financial freedom is at stake. People can not be faulted to feel that every minute spent studying the liberal arts curriculum is a minute that might be better invested in studying something that slays the elephant. It’s a life or death feeling when the money involved is more than your parents have earned cu…

I know a lot of people on here don't like them but software bootcamps are very much the startup working at solving the job training problem. Sadly, it is an industry where caveat emptor certainly applies, but if you do your research there are definitely programs that are worth their price.

Check out CIRR.org which reports audited numbers from bootcamps. Good luck finding a university that reports comprehensive, audited, financial and career outcomes for their students. The numbers don't really exist, because it would be, guessing here, VERY embarassing for the universities.

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

#286

Post by dghlsakjg » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #127

pdkl95 wrote: post #53

> At the self-described “heart” of the company’s monitoring software is Monitor AI, a “powerful artificial intelligence engine” that collects facial detection data [...] to identify “patterns and anomalies associated with cheating.” > "... people who have some sort of facial disfigurement have special challenges; they might get flagged because their face has an unexpected geometry.” So this company is extrapolating "…

It's clearly just looking for people looking at another computer or otherwise glancing elsewhere before entering answers. It's not phrenology. It may not be effective, either, and I don't want to be put in a position of defending this company. But it shouldn't be interpreted as they analyzing if someone looks like a cheater.

I (and a lot of people I know) would do pretty badly on a test that flagged me for staring into space while I think.

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

#287

Post by tgv » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #76

tgv wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one I replied to gives as reason: you can't stop them all. Let's just give everyone a MSc, shall we?

> Let's just give everyone a MSc, shall we? Are you claiming that having open-book tests makes it so that everyone can get an MSc? That’s what it sounds like you’re saying, so I assume that I just don’t know what you’re arguing. Every system is going to catch some percentage of cheaters and wrongly punish some percentage of innocent people. The pandemic has put us in a bad position where we can’t use some of the more…

The professors are overworked already. So that's one reason not to. Second, cheating is also fairly easy on open questions. Just get someone to prompt you the answers. That's what the proctoring software is for.

But it's the style of justification: because you can't catch them all, just ignore the problem. That's not ok. Education is supposed to teach you something else than cheating.

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

#288

Post by suramya_tomar » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

delaynomore wrote: post #284

pizzaknife wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one fib proficiency in a role as an individual contributor? I mean after school is through? I have been a software engineer for 14years. I am self taught with only a 2yr degree i completed my 4th year into this career. Can a line in resume(a degree mention) remedy a failed technical screening process? Personal experience : I have declined several MD CS holders this year alone for positions because their demo…

People cheat for all kinds of reasons. I'd say in many cases it bears little or no relevance to their proficiency as an IC. For example, I've seen people cheat in a Computer History class (compsci elective) presumably because they just want an easy A to push up the GPA. It doesn't necessarily mean they can't code.

Even if they can code, I don't think I would want to hire anyone who would cheat on something so basic just to push up their GPA. What is to prevent them from doing the same thing at work to get a better bonus/raise?

In the end it comes down to trust. We can't trust someone who is willing to cheat to get ahead even if they are a super coder.

- Suramya

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

#289

Post by epylar » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

pizzaknife wrote: post #247

bzb6 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It worked even finer for those who paid someone else to do the test for them.

How does one fib proficiency in a role as an individual contributor? I mean after school is through? I have been a software engineer for 14years. I am self taught with only a 2yr degree i completed my 4th year into this career. Can a line in resume(a degree mention) remedy a failed technical screening process? Personal experience : I have declined several MD CS holders this year alone for positions because their demo…

If you're lucky you get a manager who doesn't want to rock the boat and just assigns someone competent to 'help' you constantly.

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

#290

Post by sershe » Tue, Dec 01, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

A fairly typical form of exam in Russia is "written-oral", where students are writing a test together as usual, with everyone given different problems to solve/theorems to prove/things to describe, but the time slot is way larger than required for most people, and in the end when you are done a professor (of which several are usually present) sits with you for 5-15mins to discuss whatever you wrote, maybe asks some extra questions, and gives you a grade on the spot.

So, if you copy a perfect solution and have no idea how what you copied works, you are likely to fail anyway; if you just happened to get unlucky with your problems you may still be able to talk your way into a B/C showing you know stuff.

This sounds like an absolutely perfect match for zoom, since the problem where there are a bunch of people in the audience constantly discussing some other problems (or problems similar enough you can get a hint) doesn't exist anymore, and you don't need to book a large room for 6 hours so the stragglers could all be talked to by professors.