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>> How about writing open-book tests in ways that are impossible to cheat on if you don't understand the material? You've had almost a year to adapt. So in a r

>> How about writing open-book tests in ways that are impossible to cheat on if you don't understand the material? You've had almost a year to adapt. So in a remote test situation, explain how this is possible without use of these software. I can think of many scenarios where a second person can be in the room and doing the exam.

ev1 6y ago
I can also think of many scenarios where group project-based assessments can be completely done by someone else. I've seen people pay others to physically attend as them, pre-COVID, literally hand over their student ID to be physically present and take a test. You can't really stop all of them.
- tgv 6y ago
  That's no reason to lower the bar even further.
  - klodolph 6y ago
    That’s a curious way to frame the problem. The harm from these anti-cheating measures is evident.
    - tgv 6y ago
      The one I replied to gives as reason: you can't stop them all. Let's just give everyone a MSc, shall we?
      - klodolph 6y ago
        > Let's just give everyone a MSc, shall we? Are you claiming that having open-book tests makes it so that everyone can get an MSc? That’s what it sounds like you’re saying, so I assume that I just don’t know what you’re arguing. Every system is going to catch some percentage of cheaters and wrongly punish some percentage of innocent people. The pandemic has put us in a bad position where we can’t use some of the more effective systems (in-class tests) for assessing knowledge / preventing cheating, so we are forced to come up with some kind of compromise, and in many subjects, open-book, take-home tests work very well (although they require more work from the professors).
        tgv 6y ago
        The professors are overworked already. So that's one reason not to. Second, cheating is also fairly easy on open questions. Just get someone to prompt you the answers. That's what the proctoring software is for. But it's the style of justification: because you can't catch them all, just ignore the problem. That's not ok. Education is supposed to teach you something else than cheating.
jjk166 6y ago
What stopped people from having someone else do their take home tests before the pandemic? On a more constructive note, it seems pretty simple to require some portion of responses to reference the lectures such that only someone who attended the class in this semester would be able to correctly answer, for example "use the method we discussed in the first half of lecture 3, use the third of the four numbers I told you to write down that day as variable y, if you weren't in class that day instead do X" If a test comes back and someone claims to not remember the material from any classes but still got everything right, that warrants scrutiny. If someone currently enrolled in the class is helping a person cheat, you can use standard anti-cheating techniques like comparing answers.
- RegnisGnaw 6y ago
  >> What stopped people from having someone else do their take home tests before the pandemic? Nothing except these tests were not take home prior to COVID. >> On a more constructive note, it seems pretty simple to require some portion of responses to reference the lectures such that only someone who attended the class in this semester would be able to correctly answer, for example "use the method we discussed in the first half of lecture 3, use the third of the four numbers I told you to write down that day as variable y, if you weren't in class that day instead do X" If a test comes back and someone claims to not remember the material from any classes but still got everything right, that warrants scrutiny. If someone currently enrolled in the class is helping a person cheat, you can use standard anti-cheating techniques like comparing answers. So you are expecting the student to remember 100% of what they heard in the online classes? Or more likely the student would write down these details and handle it to the cheater to use during the take home exam. Or the cheater would "do X". In most cases the one doing the helping is not a current student, so it doesn't help. I've passed college classes not attending any classes. Doing assignments, exams, and mid-terms. So would I be penalized for not attending classes?
  - jjk166 6y ago
    > Nothing except these tests were not take home prior to COVID. Take home tests were definitely a thing before covid. > So you are expecting the student to remember 100% of what they heard in the online classes? Or more likely the student would write down these details and handle it to the cheater to use during the take home exam. Or the cheater would "do X". In most cases the one doing the helping is not a current student, so it doesn't help. I expect students to take notes for their open book exams. If you're competent enough to identify all the material needed for the cheater to do an open book test, congratulations you have the knowledge to pass the test. If you just record every piece of information possible, congratulations you have spent way more time and effort than it would have taken to just learn the material. If you don't attend any classes, do X. You're not being penalized for doing that, it just warrants scrutiny. If this is an entry level course that an intelligent person could teach themselves the material, then it probably doesn't matter if you cheated or not, you'll be found out in higher level courses. If this is a high level course, your department would probably have a good idea of how capable you are from past performance. If the guy struggling to get a C in introductory physics gets a perfect score on his quantum final without going to class once, that is super suspicious.
ghaff 6y ago
And yet I had many open book tests/assignments decades ago before there were even personal computers. Technology doesn't solve everything and some things aren't worth trying to solve 100%.
- RegnisGnaw 6y ago
  At the same time it doesn't mean we should not try to solve them to say 90%.

ev1 6y ago

I can also think of many scenarios where group project-based assessments can be completely done by someone else. I've seen people pay others to physically attend as them, pre-COVID, literally hand over their student ID to be physically present and take a test. You can't really stop all of them.

tgv 6y ago
That's no reason to lower the bar even further.
- klodolph 6y ago
  That’s a curious way to frame the problem. The harm from these anti-cheating measures is evident.
  - tgv 6y ago
    The one I replied to gives as reason: you can't stop them all. Let's just give everyone a MSc, shall we?
    - klodolph 6y ago
      > Let's just give everyone a MSc, shall we? Are you claiming that having open-book tests makes it so that everyone can get an MSc? That’s what it sounds like you’re saying, so I assume that I just don’t know what you’re arguing. Every system is going to catch some percentage of cheaters and wrongly punish some percentage of innocent people. The pandemic has put us in a bad position where we can’t use some of the more effective systems (in-class tests) for assessing knowledge / preventing cheating, so we are forced to come up with some kind of compromise, and in many subjects, open-book, take-home tests work very well (although they require more work from the professors).
      - tgv 6y ago
        The professors are overworked already. So that's one reason not to. Second, cheating is also fairly easy on open questions. Just get someone to prompt you the answers. That's what the proctoring software is for. But it's the style of justification: because you can't catch them all, just ignore the problem. That's not ok. Education is supposed to teach you something else than cheating.

jjk166 6y ago

What stopped people from having someone else do their take home tests before the pandemic? On a more constructive note, it seems pretty simple to require some portion of responses to reference the lectures such that only someone who attended the class in this semester would be able to correctly answer, for example "use the method we discussed in the first half of lecture 3, use the third of the four numbers I told you to write down that day as variable y, if you weren't in class that day instead do X" If a test comes back and someone claims to not remember the material from any classes but still got everything right, that warrants scrutiny. If someone currently enrolled in the class is helping a person cheat, you can use standard anti-cheating techniques like comparing answers.

RegnisGnaw 6y ago
>> What stopped people from having someone else do their take home tests before the pandemic? Nothing except these tests were not take home prior to COVID. >> On a more constructive note, it seems pretty simple to require some portion of responses to reference the lectures such that only someone who attended the class in this semester would be able to correctly answer, for example "use the method we discussed in the first half of lecture 3, use the third of the four numbers I told you to write down that day as variable y, if you weren't in class that day instead do X" If a test comes back and someone claims to not remember the material from any classes but still got everything right, that warrants scrutiny. If someone currently enrolled in the class is helping a person cheat, you can use standard anti-cheating techniques like comparing answers. So you are expecting the student to remember 100% of what they heard in the online classes? Or more likely the student would write down these details and handle it to the cheater to use during the take home exam. Or the cheater would "do X". In most cases the one doing the helping is not a current student, so it doesn't help. I've passed college classes not attending any classes. Doing assignments, exams, and mid-terms. So would I be penalized for not attending classes?
- jjk166 6y ago
  > Nothing except these tests were not take home prior to COVID. Take home tests were definitely a thing before covid. > So you are expecting the student to remember 100% of what they heard in the online classes? Or more likely the student would write down these details and handle it to the cheater to use during the take home exam. Or the cheater would "do X". In most cases the one doing the helping is not a current student, so it doesn't help. I expect students to take notes for their open book exams. If you're competent enough to identify all the material needed for the cheater to do an open book test, congratulations you have the knowledge to pass the test. If you just record every piece of information possible, congratulations you have spent way more time and effort than it would have taken to just learn the material. If you don't attend any classes, do X. You're not being penalized for doing that, it just warrants scrutiny. If this is an entry level course that an intelligent person could teach themselves the material, then it probably doesn't matter if you cheated or not, you'll be found out in higher level courses. If this is a high level course, your department would probably have a good idea of how capable you are from past performance. If the guy struggling to get a C in introductory physics gets a perfect score on his quantum final without going to class once, that is super suspicious.

ghaff 6y ago

And yet I had many open book tests/assignments decades ago before there were even personal computers. Technology doesn't solve everything and some things aren't worth trying to solve 100%.

RegnisGnaw 6y ago
At the same time it doesn't mean we should not try to solve them to say 90%.