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Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

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Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#51

Post by aschatten »

tzs wrote: post #35
BalinKing wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my Ph 1b (freshman special relativity and electrostatics) quizzes guided you through "discovering" a new method of solving that type of problem. I don't remember the specific details, but it's one of the rare tests I've taken that I actually enjoyed! Although most homeworks and exams aren't nearly that cool IME, they're virtually all about synthesis and fundamental understanding rather than rote memorization.…

When Carl Sagan was writing "Contact" he attended a conference that was also attended by his friend Kip Thorne. Sagan knew that one of Thorne's pet peeves was science fiction that just hand-waved away the physics of FTL travel. Sagan told Thorne he was writing a science fiction novel, needed FTL travel, and asked Thorne if he could suggest something that would be reasonable. Thorne agreed to look into it. After the c…

Do you know if it's possible to get ahold of a copy?

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#52

Post by chrisseaton »

askvictor wrote: post #50

A solution for both this, and the problems with exams in general, is oral exams. Student has to answer questions from the teacher, in real time, one-on-one. Takes longer, but is much more authentic.

I think in the US some class sizes are in the hundreds, so this does not seem scalable for their case.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#53

Post by poulsbohemian »

I just went through this kind of experience on Friday, taking my Oregon real estate license exam (I passed, now will be dual licensed in WA and OR!).

The having to scan the room, scan my ears, scan my "desk" (or in this case my crotch because I was using a laptop) was all very silly, but didn't really bother me. The worst parts were all very human - they sent me the wrong link for the test, shared incorrect information about the allowed materials (IE: scratch paper, a 4 function calculator, etc), and then I waited for more than 20 minutes for the proctor to finally show up. Then of course there's the problem that the test provider has wonky weird software, including forcing you to install their "secure" test software. Which then yells at you for having a browser open that it necessitated to start the install process.

I guess what I'm really saying is - I find it funny that this is deemed "secure" when really I suspect most people taking a test have the same emotions as myself - we just wanna get to it and get it done.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#54

Post by dheera »

cosmie wrote: post #9

Back in the good ol' days, you could just take the exam inside of a VM. The VM is locked down, but the host isn't. Looks like from ProctorU's docs[1] that they got around to probing for the (blatantly obvious[2]) signatures of a VM and stopped that trick. I wonder if those signatures exist in a Windows Sandbox[3] instance, or if you can detect/block the Enhanced RDP Session Windows leverages when running a Sandbox...…

I would be in favor of a VM that is indistinguishable from a non-VM host. Is there any project that helps bring such functionality to, say, VirtualBox?

Not because I encourage cheating, but because I should never have to install proprietary software on my personal machine to take an exam. I will however on occasion grudingly be okay with installing closed-source software inside of a VM.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#55

Post by cloud5ir »

To me, this underscores notion that schools continue to test for the wrong thing. With the exception of professions/trades that require impulse application of knowledge, I don't know why I would want/need someone to memorize a concept in order to apply it. Productive members of our society/workforce think critically, they ask good questions, and they research and leverage the information at their disposal to make data-driven decisions. Let's test for that.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#56

Post by space_fountain »

chrisseaton wrote: post #52
askvictor wrote: post #50

A solution for both this, and the problems with exams in general, is oral exams. Student has to answer questions from the teacher, in real time, one-on-one. Takes longer, but is much more authentic.

I think in the US some class sizes are in the hundreds , so this does not seem scalable for their case.

Some but for my college at least very few. I think I took one class with more than 100 people in it

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#57

Post by [deleted] »

space_fountain wrote: post #56
chrisseaton wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in the US some class sizes are in the hundreds , so this does not seem scalable for their case.

Some but for my college at least very few. I think I took one class with more than 100 people in it

[deleted]

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#58

Post by dghughes »

beisner wrote: post #10
_8091149529 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent a few years at Caltech in an academic role (not as a student). I never understood the rationale behind the unsupervised take-home exams. Could you elaborate what is it that makes it a 'success', in your opinion? The shortcomings that seem obvious to me are: - Penalizes honesty - Implied notion that Caltech students are "honourable" and honest. How is this achieved in practice?

The idea is that you create questions that are ungoogleable. Most of my upper-level CS courses had take-homes that were open-book, open-internet, and the professor basically said “good luck finding the answer to this problem online; you will not”. This is harder for professors to do, and maybe fails in intro courses, but generally is quite effective.

That reminds me of when I took and distance learning electronics technician course. You could Google (search) all you wanted to but seeing answers didn't help in knowing how to solve the equations.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#59

Post by TheRealPomax »

cosmie wrote: post #9

Back in the good ol' days, you could just take the exam inside of a VM. The VM is locked down, but the host isn't. Looks like from ProctorU's docs[1] that they got around to probing for the (blatantly obvious[2]) signatures of a VM and stopped that trick. I wonder if those signatures exist in a Windows Sandbox[3] instance, or if you can detect/block the Enhanced RDP Session Windows leverages when running a Sandbox...…

If your VM is running on my computer, it is not locked down. I'm going to get in, and so will anyone else who really wants to.

Re: Students have to jump through absurd hoops to use exam monitoring software

#60

Post by sjy »

bitwize wrote: post #7

Makes me glad for things like the Stevens Honor System, which was how exams were administered at Stevens Institute of Technology. Basically, all work submitted, whether tests or homework, require a pledge with a signature that the work is your own and you didn't cheat. Violations of the honor system -- cheating, plagiarism, etc. could be reported by students or faculty and would be investigated by the Honor Board wit…

Is there a school out there that doesn’t investigate and punish students who cheat or plagiarise? There are certainly differences in strictness, but I thought the “honor code” you describe was a basic policy at all institutes of higher education, regardless of the normal mode of assessment.
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