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We allow students to take exams alone, unsupervised, all the time and we have been doing it just fine for hundreds of years. Have you ever written a paper as a

We allow students to take exams alone, unsupervised, all the time and we have been doing it just fine for hundreds of years. Have you ever written a paper as a final for a class? Or done a problem set? Or a project? Or even a take home test? No surveillance needed if you structure the format of the final to suit the “testing” environment. If the answers to your final are easily Googled then you’ve written a shitty final.

mytailorisrich 5y ago
A final paper is different and the concept itself obviously does not lend itself to surveillance, which used to be less important because it is/was less easy to cheat. There are growing problems with this as well because of all the online "help" students may get access to these days. Allowing students to take exams alone, at home, unsupervised is just a recipe for disaster without surveillance. It's not just Google but any sort of help in the room or remote, which can go all the way to someone else taking the exam. That really simply is the reality. I don't think this is contentious and I am surprised by the debate. On the other hand, it is of course possible to discuss how far surveillance should go and how perhaps to avoid too much intrusion (as mentioned in my previous comment). That said, with the expensive connectivity people have these days, in addition to all they can think of if the exam takes place at home this is really an arm race situation. So, again, the alternative is good old in-person, on-site exams, where students are also under surveillance, by the way, but that feels less intrusive because students aren't in their own private space at home.
krull10 5y ago
Then you’re lucky to have students with a lot of integrity at your college/university. Even with a great unique exam where nothing can be looked up online, this doesn’t prevent students from copying each other, posting problems on sites like Chegg and paying for help, or working together…

mytailorisrich 5y ago

A final paper is different and the concept itself obviously does not lend itself to surveillance, which used to be less important because it is/was less easy to cheat. There are growing problems with this as well because of all the online "help" students may get access to these days. Allowing students to take exams alone, at home, unsupervised is just a recipe for disaster without surveillance. It's not just Google but any sort of help in the room or remote, which can go all the way to someone else taking the exam. That really simply is the reality. I don't think this is contentious and I am surprised by the debate. On the other hand, it is of course possible to discuss how far surveillance should go and how perhaps to avoid too much intrusion (as mentioned in my previous comment). That said, with the expensive connectivity people have these days, in addition to all they can think of if the exam takes place at home this is really an arm race situation. So, again, the alternative is good old in-person, on-site exams, where students are also under surveillance, by the way, but that feels less intrusive because students aren't in their own private space at home.

krull10 5y ago

Then you’re lucky to have students with a lot of integrity at your college/university. Even with a great unique exam where nothing can be looked up online, this doesn’t prevent students from copying each other, posting problems on sites like Chegg and paying for help, or working together…