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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

#321

Post by JumpCrisscross »

zabzonk wrote: post #307

While I am in no way a supporter of AI cheating, or whatever we want to call it, I can tell you from experience that there is nothing more tedious or soul destroying than invigilating a written multi-hour exam. It put me off teaching in higher education. IMHO to solve many problems we should go with Ivan Illich's ideas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deschooling_Society and make education about education, not testing…

> make education about education, not testing and certification

We tried this. The whole grades-are-racist nonsense movement (in part a reaction to NCLB).

It doesn’t work. Learning requires confronting difficulty and evaluation, even if you’re learning alone. If you want to see what attempting to learn without tests looks like, see people who think they’ve taught themselves a topic by chatting with AI. Nine times out of ten they think they know something but can’t solve actual problems on their own.

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

#322

Post by analog31 »

infinite_spin wrote: post #246
yiyingzhang wrote: post #199

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.

Grading is to provide your students with a goal, one that isn't so high-minded as "the goal is education". The human mind uses a "reward system", within a feedback cycle. If you want to do away with that, just because it's what you prefer, then you're ignoring the reality of being human.

Indeed, and it also gives students a way to budget their time between the demands of multiple classes. I studied enough for each course to put me in good enough stead for the exams, then moved on to the next course. I got it right most of the time.

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

#323

Post by lcampbell »

Aurornis wrote: post #286
BinRoo wrote: post #167

> In the AI era... Back in my day, you could also just Google the problems and find the solutions. What mitigated cheating at UVA was the honor code and each professor's faith and trust in our integrity. That culture was enough to not cheat. Imo, the fix should be to work on culture. Cheating should always be a tempting choice, so that the student may challenge their integrity, which is a muscle that can atrophy.

> What mitigated cheating at UVA was the honor code and each professor's faith and trust in our integrity. That culture was enough to not cheat. The decline of actual consequences for cheating has played a big role. When I was in college, people who got caught cheating found themselves in a world of trouble. Repeat offenders faced severe consequences like failing courses, which could delay their graduation date if it…

At UVA many years ago, one of my roommates was one of the unfortunate 20 or so annually expelled -- the only outcome of being convicted of breaking the "no cheating, stealing, or lying" honor code. It didn't take repeat offenses, expulsion was a first offense consequence.

Interestingly, it seems like you weren't joking about the decline:

> Finally in the spring of 2022, a sanction reform referendum succeeded with more than 80% of the vote, changing the penalty for an Honor violation from expulsion to a two semester suspension. [1]

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

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

#324

Post by anigbrowl »

dminik wrote: post #177
forgetfreeman wrote: post #138

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.

When I was in grade school the common practice was to use the back page of the exam booklet to do a quick outline (assuming there was no other scrap paper available) and just cross it out when you were done with it. Being able to organize your thoughts and maintain a clear direction in writing 500-1000 words seems like an important thing to test for.

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

#325

Post by JumpCrisscross »

pants2 wrote: 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.

> graded on a curve, and you know your fellow classmates are cheating with AI, you have little choice but to do the same

You always have a choice. The right move, in this case, is to raise a stink to administration, donors and politicians. Hell, use AI to do it. Schools refusing to punish teaching is a problem that’s leaking into business and politics.

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

#326

Post by lstodd »

overtone1000 wrote: post #304
nekusar wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If one of these clients of yours became an engineer, doctor, or lawyer, would you want their services for yourself or your family?

if someone shows that kind of dedication to engineering, and make no mistake, this is engineering, I would certainly hire them at least as an apprentice.

one can settle into a doctor or lawyer career some time later. one can't learn to think out of the box on a whim.

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

#327

Post by Steuard »

userbinator wrote: post #49

take-home, closed-book type What an oxymoron. I agree with the others here that AI isn't the problem.

I can't say what the reality looks like today, but when I was in college 25 years ago (Harvey Mudd), closed-book take-home exams were pretty common (often with a specific time limit: maybe 3/5/8 hours), and I would have been shocked and aghast at the thought of anyone cheating. We took our Honor Code deeply seriously. (I've given my own students take-home open-book exams with "no outside resources" rules regularly in the past, but I've pretty much concluded that isn't viable anymore. But then, we don't have a formal Honor Code here.)

One particularly striking example was a timed, closed-book math exam where the exam paper just listed four problem numbers from the book. We were expected to open the book, copy down those problems without looking at anything else, and then put the book away. Honestly, that one felt like just asking for trouble and now that I'm a professor myself I think that the prof was unreasonably lazy, but it certainly captured the spirit of the thing. (Technically, that wasn't a Harvey Mudd professor but rather a professor at the adjacent graduate university. Maybe that had something to do with it.)

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

#328

Post by 1123581321 »

squibonpig wrote: post #218
1123581321 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s fine to erase or use scratch paper on an essay test. You don’t write the test to fill the 60 minute slot. You time it so students are able to finish early if they’re really good. Slow ones need the whole time but can still do well if they understand the material being tested.

I don't generally get why tests are designed to rush a student. Is speed a proxy for understanding?

I meant to say they usually aren’t a rush for non-ace students, just a full hour. You have to work diligently, though. Competitive tests excepted, obviously.

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

#329

Post by efficax »

jedberg wrote: post #289
nlawalker wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Between this and a decline in junior hiring, this is sorting itself out in the form of sharply declining CS enrollment. Which is fine, except for anyone with an interest in keeping enrollment high.

CS enrollment is declining, but not demand. Everyone is citing the numbers from UC Berkeley showing a 26% percent decline in enrollment. What they fail to mention is that the CS department reduced their admit slots by 25% because the TAs negotiated an $80/hr rate, and they can't afford as many, so they can't open as many classes. But the number of students applying for CS is actually up slightly.

lol they can absolutely afford TAs, i don’t know why they might reduce class slots but that’s not why

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

#330

Post by 05 »

npstr wrote: post #278
nekusar wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Seems easy to counter all of this. I study at a German remote university, and they require, next to the front camera, a second camera to record the screen + hands and arms of the student while taking exams, and before the exam starts a complete video of the room, below desk areas, ears, etc. I don't see an angle how to reliably cheat in such conditions, and have seen nothing mentioned by any other student. So I would…

Second stationary camera recording the screen meaning you just need to replace the screen with the virtual screen in the footage you send as the secondary camera feed, easy for a static camera because it’s an affine transform with fixed parameters. If you don’t wave your arms in a way where they overlap the screen region then it’s ridiculously easy, otherwise don’t forget to release the ‘cheating on’ foot pedal before doing that.
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