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Trainee doctors left 'crying' after computer glitch crashes online exam

20 points by jen729w 9y ago

draw_down 9y ago
Software is garbage.
singingboyo 9y ago
It appears the exam was online for the first year, and was administered by Pearson Vue, the same Pearson responsible for MyMathLab and others. I can't say I'm surprised that the system crashed, given that. Pearson software is just generally unreliable and unpleasant to use. I don't believe they deserve anyone's business, but unfortunately it appears to be very difficult to start separating colleges from Pearson.
- josegmiralles 9y ago
  I for some reason hate Pearson as much as I hate Comecast and the lot.
- ateesdalejr 9y ago
  I can agree with you on that. Every time I've taken an SAT or some other state test online I've ended up with Pearson. Their software in general is pretty janky.
- sosilkj 9y ago
  School administrators who hand over the pedagogical reins to a soul-less corporation like Pearson should be held accountable. It's basically an abrogation of administrative duties. Unfortunately universities are slowly being overrun by such charlatans.
willbw 9y ago
I would love to hear how this happened.
- jmts 9y ago
  At a previous job, I had to investigate a similar issue where some online exams were being terminated early. The overall scheme worked out something like this: 1. students connect to the online system 2. load balancers assign each connection to a server from a pool of 8 or so 3. students start the test 4. a single server responsible for monitoring test duration, checks all open test instances, and terminates those that have exceeded the test time limit The issue ended up being that a single one of the load balanced servers had its time set slow. That meant that when the terminator server came along, the students had their test end according to the time delta between the server assigned their connection, and the terminator server. Amusingly, it took some time to convince the sysadmin to check their times - they were convinced that they'd manually corrected all the system times after the last power outage...
  - willbw 9y ago
    Thanks for this, interesting stuff!
parliament32 9y ago
>This is the first time the exam was done online and was run by the international IT company Pearson Vue on behalf of the RACP. Not surprising. I remember dreading any university course that had online "tools" run by Pearson.
fifteenforty 9y ago
I can’t emphasise how big a deal this is for the doctors and hospitals involved. It’s very difficult to organise the rosters to allow this exam to happen. This exam is high stakes and difficult. The pass mark is only 50-60%.
aaron695 9y ago
> left 'crying', 'distressed' after computer glitch crashes online exam The most disturbing bit. They do know in the future they will have to handle peoples lives which will be on the line.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

20 points by jen729w 9y ago

Software is garbage.

It appears the exam was online for the first year, and was administered by Pearson Vue, the same Pearson responsible for MyMathLab and others. I can't say I'm surprised that the system crashed, given that. Pearson software is just generally unreliable and unpleasant to use. I don't believe they deserve anyone's business, but unfortunately it appears to be very difficult to start separating colleges from Pearson.

josegmiralles 9y ago
I for some reason hate Pearson as much as I hate Comecast and the lot.
ateesdalejr 9y ago
I can agree with you on that. Every time I've taken an SAT or some other state test online I've ended up with Pearson. Their software in general is pretty janky.
sosilkj 9y ago
School administrators who hand over the pedagogical reins to a soul-less corporation like Pearson should be held accountable. It's basically an abrogation of administrative duties. Unfortunately universities are slowly being overrun by such charlatans.

willbw 9y ago

I would love to hear how this happened.

jmts 9y ago
At a previous job, I had to investigate a similar issue where some online exams were being terminated early. The overall scheme worked out something like this: 1. students connect to the online system 2. load balancers assign each connection to a server from a pool of 8 or so 3. students start the test 4. a single server responsible for monitoring test duration, checks all open test instances, and terminates those that have exceeded the test time limit The issue ended up being that a single one of the load balanced servers had its time set slow. That meant that when the terminator server came along, the students had their test end according to the time delta between the server assigned their connection, and the terminator server. Amusingly, it took some time to convince the sysadmin to check their times - they were convinced that they'd manually corrected all the system times after the last power outage...
- willbw 9y ago
  Thanks for this, interesting stuff!

parliament32 9y ago

>This is the first time the exam was done online and was run by the international IT company Pearson Vue on behalf of the RACP. Not surprising. I remember dreading any university course that had online "tools" run by Pearson.

fifteenforty 9y ago

I can’t emphasise how big a deal this is for the doctors and hospitals involved. It’s very difficult to organise the rosters to allow this exam to happen. This exam is high stakes and difficult. The pass mark is only 50-60%.

aaron695 9y ago

> left 'crying', 'distressed' after computer glitch crashes online exam The most disturbing bit. They do know in the future they will have to handle peoples lives which will be on the line.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]