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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

#581
post #146
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those exams a contest? Like, they will only take the best N percentiles? Because if not, you’re competing only against yourself and should ignore others’ grades

It's an incredibly privileged Pov to say it isn't a contest. These kids entire futures are impacted by these scores.

> These kids entire futures are impacted by these scores.

Has that changed since I was in school? After I got my degree, not a single person or entity in the workforce ever asked for my grades. They just wanted to see the degree.

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

#582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 60+. I'd be more concerned about the student's physical ability to write for several hours continuously. Writer's cramp used to be a problem, and that was when we were used to hand-writing everything. Legibility is also a consideration: I have to hand-write a lot(keyboards would not be socially acceptable for some of my work), and even with decades of practice and a hand that I designed for legibility, sometimes…

I have absolutely no concern over a 20 yr old's ability to weather the rigors of manipulating a 7 gram pencil. It's not like we're talking about getting them to spend a week on a roofing crew or swap their gaming mouse for a set of post hole diggers here. If someone needs an accommodation then that should absolutely be made available.

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

#583
post #552

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.

>The point of the exercise is to demonstrate the student's understanding of the material, not their WPM. Testing for understanding requires the fastest WPM possible. Regardless of the method used, students don't all write at the same speed. To minimize the influence of this variance, they need to use the fastest writing technique possible. If a fast writer spends 30 minutes writing in a two hour test, and a slow writ…

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

#584

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.

I'm currently getting my Bachelor's in Computer Science, while in-person is absolutely necessary, it doesn't necessarily need to be hand-written. We now have the exam questions printed out, and we respond on the online exam platform, just like we would before. It is explicitly stated that no aids, including AI, are permitted. There's usually the prof and at least one more TA walking around the room, if anyone is seen…

How would that software stop you from Just googling things on your phone at the same time?

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

#585

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.

I'm currently getting my Bachelor's in Computer Science, while in-person is absolutely necessary, it doesn't necessarily need to be hand-written. We now have the exam questions printed out, and we respond on the online exam platform, just like we would before. It is explicitly stated that no aids, including AI, are permitted. There's usually the prof and at least one more TA walking around the room, if anyone is seen…

In 2024, we had some coding exams, and AI was explicitly NOT forbidden, which lead to them making the exam more difficult (because with AI, you can solve it so much more quickly, so gotta make it harder), which was really annoying, because it made it practically impossible to solve it yourself because of the time crunch. I hope they realized how wrong that was.

There should be at least one class, probably more, that work exactly like that.

That’s where the industry is moving. Yes, get the fundamentals too, but don’t omit teaching what graduates will actually be doing out of some misplaced sense of purity.

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

#586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you're exaggerating, but the exam process in a CBTF is pretty lightweight. Students arrive, drop off their bags and phone etc., check in (swipe an ID card, get their picture matched), log into the computer and the exam website. When the exam starts, they refresh the site and do the exam; we've got proctors in the room as usual to watch for any conventional cheating (using a phone, consulting a friend). If yo…

The loss of trust would be the depressing part (to me). That said the amount of cheating I witnessed in undergrad was also depressing.

TBH - for me, it’s an opportunity to do a different kind of exam, with a level of interactivity and realism that isn’t possible with paper exams. It is possible but much more annoying to run such exams in a BYOD setting: for example, the lack of consistency between people’s machines, and the risk of device failures, are just two reasons why BYOD is hard even before you get into the cheating aspects.

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

#587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m 30 and “we can’t do tests in paper” seems _insane_. Just how metastatic has ed tech been in what, 9 years since my undergrad?

I'm quite a bit older than you, old enough that I remember learning to touch type in elementary school on Apple IIe and IIgs desktop computers. It's not reasonable these days to expect people to hand write a 4, 6, 8 page length essay on paper and pen with a finite time limit in a classroom. Being able to edit and revise things in a word processor type interface is an essential part of writing an academic paper. Addit…

> It's not reasonable these days to expect people to hand write a 4, 6, 8 page length essay on paper and pen with a finite time limit in a classroom.

Say what? Writing by hand is not only useful to write. It helps practice fine motor control. Something you need in many places in life, and most people have no practice of other than by writing.

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

#588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently getting my Bachelor's in Computer Science, while in-person is absolutely necessary, it doesn't necessarily need to be hand-written. We now have the exam questions printed out, and we respond on the online exam platform, just like we would before. It is explicitly stated that no aids, including AI, are permitted. There's usually the prof and at least one more TA walking around the room, if anyone is seen…

How would that software stop you from Just googling things on your phone at the same time?

You are supposed to not use your phone during an exam

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

#589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently getting my Bachelor's in Computer Science, while in-person is absolutely necessary, it doesn't necessarily need to be hand-written. We now have the exam questions printed out, and we respond on the online exam platform, just like we would before. It is explicitly stated that no aids, including AI, are permitted. There's usually the prof and at least one more TA walking around the room, if anyone is seen…

How would that software stop you from Just googling things on your phone at the same time?

all our exams are in-person.

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

#590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're doing a good job I think the problem is that the grader has to run your code in their head. That's a whole different problem.

Good, the grader should hone that skill at pace then.

The student has to submit one exam.

The grader has to grade N exams.

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