Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules
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Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules
#2Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules
#3The problem at the core is not spyware and "room checks", they are just a symptom - the question rather is how exams are designed and why schools and universities go to such drastic lengths to prevent cheating.
Most tests are essentially nothing more than tests for the ability of rote memorization - they don't (really) check if the students actually understood the material and are able to apply it to new situations ("transfer of learning"), especially because it is way more difficult to create such tests and to fairly grade them. However, rote memorization tests are extremely easy to cheat on, which requires intrusive countermeasures.
In the end, this is a "common thread" across most of modern academia - the focus has long since shifted from taking in the most gifted of society for actual academic research to providing a fresh herd of fungible graduates for large corporations to prey upon each year, and it shows everywhere from how admissions are handled over the sad and sorry state of frontal teaching to, as seen, dehumanizing exams.
ETA: I've ranted about the causes in the past here, with the reply to my post being really worth the read IMO: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32383965
Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules
#4It is terrible, but what is the alternative to prevent cheating? I had quite a few on-line exams by now and I've seen very creative attempts at cheating so far.
Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules
#5It is terrible, but what is the alternative to prevent cheating? I had quite a few on-line exams by now and I've seen very creative attempts at cheating so far.
Take home tests are a thing.
I've never had one, but from what I've heard they're the kind of thing that if done properly ends up being a better way to test people, but they're harder for instructors to implement.
Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules
#6The problem at the core is not spyware and "room checks", they are just a symptom - the question rather is how exams are designed and why schools and universities go to such drastic lengths to prevent cheating. Most tests are essentially nothing more than tests for the ability of rote memorization - they don't (really) check if the students actually understood the material and are able to apply it to new situations (…
this has been my experience with college too... just a waste of time to satisfy the bureaucrats. They think that winning a silly exam proves anything but your willingness to waste your time memorizing answers.
Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules
#7It is terrible, but what is the alternative to prevent cheating? I had quite a few on-line exams by now and I've seen very creative attempts at cheating so far.
You've been able to take online classes for decades, why is this suddenly a problem?
Moreover, if people want to cheat they can find some way to cheat regardless of any countermeasures you deploy.
Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules
#8It is terrible, but what is the alternative to prevent cheating? I had quite a few on-line exams by now and I've seen very creative attempts at cheating so far.
Take home tests that are difficult enough for the questions to not be easily answered on Stack Exchange or paid sites. This is fairly easy to do in upper-division undergraduate courses as well as graduate courses. Not so easy for lower-division courses. The closest I've seen for a lower-division class was a professor who made as much of the exam content based off examples from lecture material, but I always saw that as a way to punish students who ditched lectures.
Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules
#9It is terrible, but what is the alternative to prevent cheating? I had quite a few on-line exams by now and I've seen very creative attempts at cheating so far.
Take home tests are a thing. I've never had one, but from what I've heard they're the kind of thing that if done properly ends up being a better way to test people, but they're harder for instructors to implement.
I guess so. Most of the tests I;ve taken at college were the same tasks as in previous years, just with changed numbers.
... or not. That also happened.
Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules
#10It is terrible, but what is the alternative to prevent cheating? I had quite a few on-line exams by now and I've seen very creative attempts at cheating so far.
You've been able to take online classes for decades, why is this suddenly a problem? Moreover, if people want to cheat they can find some way to cheat regardless of any countermeasures you deploy.
>which [why?] is this suddenly a problem?
Because most of teachers didn't teach online class before. They are not used to design exams that would not be way too easy it suddenly becomes open book.
I won't even say they're "lazy", coming up good take-home exams is super hard, especially when you spend your entire career not need to do that.
> if people want to cheat they can find some way to cheat regardless of any countermeasures you deploy.
I agree if it's online exam, it's kinda doomed either way. But it's more to act as a deterrent than total solution. And it does work to some "less-adventurous" students.
Note: above is just directly replying to your questions. I don't support scanning student's room.