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Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

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Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#221

I have seen it firsthand in the CS department here at Dartmouth. It is bad. We're currently designing a new intro systems curriculum, and we're thinking of it as an adversarial problem. That is, we're designing the course to ensure that a student optimizing for the best grade per unit work still meets our learning objectives. That means, as everyone else is saying, paper exams, but also 1-on-1 interviews to check tha…

Without a hint of irony, wouldn't a Voice AI solution help better manage the 1-1 interview process?

1-on-1 interviews with a LLM sounds like it'd go over about as well as AI customer service.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#222

In the AI era, tests are going to have to be in person and hand written. I have written an article on how I have adjusted my classes to the situation: https://htmx.org/essays/universities-and-ai/ Ironically, I think the AI era may make university degrees a better signal of the intellectual abilities of students due to the presence of pre-computer infrastructure like large lecture halls, industrial-scale copiers, etc.

> In the AI era, tests are going to have to be in person and hand written. Forcing hand written should really not be necessary. It would be very cheap in terms of old computing hardware to set up a test room with old desktop PCs that have wired only NICs (with a network connection that goes to a switch in the same room with no uplink, connected to a decent size laser printer only), running something like lubuntu and…

Talking about programming-related courses, I can see the point of testing on a computer where one can run and debug actual code (that's how I had my programming courses) but I am not sure I get the advantage or writing code or pseudocode on a "basic word processor".

Moreover, for math or math-heavy courses (assuming most people with degrees here have STEM degrees, and many with at least some math) I cannot imagine how to comfortably write math in a word processor. Or use latex and not spend half the time troubleshooting latex, esp without internet access. So for some kind of courses at least, imo pen and paper for a timed in-person exam is the only way.

Otherwise def doable, but knowing how some universities function, I think the main problem would be getting the agreement and initiative to set such a computer room up. Getting some kind of consensus between professors that this is how (some) exams should be held and including it in the Holy Curriculum. Getting bureaucrats understand what it is about eg why you need these wired connections when the uni has a campus-wide wifi. Getting IT security agree with using old computers with lubuntu instead of their bloated enterprise windows "secure" OS. And if they are not connected to the internet how will they get security updates? How do we conform to whatever IT security rules are in place?

Writing on paper is much simpler, everybody can understand it and has been standard for decades at least. It can start tomorrow and be used in the interim while waiting approval for such a computer setup.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the benefit of cursive over standard writing?

What is "standard writing"? Isn't cursive the standard you're taught and then everyone writes however they want?

No. Most people handwrite most things in print lettering, not cursive. I'm nearly 40 and no one in my life writes anything other than their name (signature) in cursive ever.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#225

As a university professor, I honestly don't understand the point of grading. Who will look at and care about grades? Likely company HR. But then why should we (professors) do the screening for companies for free? Also, grades have long been inflated to a point we might as well just give everyone an A and let companies figure out how to select people.

During my undergraduate university, the best scores had priority when choosing the limited slot numbers, including the time slots and sometimes which professor we were to attend. e.g. I would pick Calculus MWF mornings, group two because professor XxXx was in charge; lower grade students who polled agaisnt me would be bumped to a different group, or to a different time slot, or not making it to the lowest grade cut

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#226
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 50. Optimizing testing for speed is goofy. The point of the exercise is to demonstrate the student's understanding of the material, not their WPM.

You should definitely take speed into consideration. If your're writing an essay, being able to type it out and still have both the opportunity and time to edit it is great. If you're writing it on paper, you likely have neither. What comes to you first is what's submitted.

And that's exactly the point! By making sure the student can't edit the entire text once its written, you force him to think about the essay's structure and force him to plan much more before writing :)

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the AI era, tests are going to have to be in person and hand written. Forcing hand written should really not be necessary. It would be very cheap in terms of old computing hardware to set up a test room with old desktop PCs that have wired only NICs (with a network connection that goes to a switch in the same room with no uplink, connected to a decent size laser printer only), running something like lubuntu and…

What's wrong with https://www.scantron.com/ ?

For nearly any subject of learning at a level above high school, multiple choice is a terrible way to assess knowledge.

Multiple choice can only tell if you reached a final answer (or guessed it). It cannot tell anything about how you reached that conclusion.

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think everybody should be able to write cursive As someone who has hated both reading and writing cursive since middle school, I'm curious what is significant about cursive specifically?

Doing work with handwriting helps in learning the material. I don't know why that works, but my experience (and others') clearly shows it does.

And I strongly disagree.

The moment I have to write stuff down my focus is gone and I might as well be taking a nap.

And having to read my own handwriting assures I’ll never look at that page, again.

Different strokes

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#229
post #28
post #15

When you're a student in a competitive program at a top university, graded on a curve, and you know your fellow classmates are cheating with AI, you have little choice but to do the same. Especially when jobs for new grads are harder to come by and there's more pressure to also go above and beyond with internships and side projects during your time in school. There's no way to compete without cheating.

The Lance Armstrong defense

As bill burr said - "our roided up guy beat your roided up guy".

Re: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the AI era, tests are going to have to be in person and hand written. Forcing hand written should really not be necessary. It would be very cheap in terms of old computing hardware to set up a test room with old desktop PCs that have wired only NICs (with a network connection that goes to a switch in the same room with no uplink, connected to a decent size laser printer only), running something like lubuntu and…

how do you make sure they are not using their mobile phone with llms while the exam? I have seen that happening.

If people wanted to get really serious you could use a cell phone jammer and have students pass through a mini EMP at the door.
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