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I’ve never seen a critique of proctoring software that offers an alternate solution to the problem (remotely delivering a skills assessment that is used to allo

I’ve never seen a critique of proctoring software that offers an alternate solution to the problem (remotely delivering a skills assessment that is used to allocate resources in an environment known to have rampant cheating)

ketzu 5y ago
And the ones that do propose alternatives do so from a very narrow point of view. Oral exams are much more time consuming and simply not practical in many situations. Projects and seminar papers have similar problems, especially in early semesters.
notreallyserio 5y ago
Have students sit for an exam and then follow up with a question or two (from a pool of N), live, to see if they actually understand the material. We're paying hundreds or thousands each, they can easily afford to spend the time.
yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
There's a discussion upthread right now about making the whole problem irrelevant by switching to open book tests and/or having a 5-minute conversation with the student to make sure that they actually have some clue what they're talking about.
hackermailman 5y ago
Best way is do away with exams and have projects graded instead. Math write a survey paper on the subject that demonstrates expertise, then orally defend it on live chat where you can't easily cheat, that's what my school did but only had european accreditation whereas regional US likes 20th century examination style.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  Anything subjectively graded like a project is a big vector for introducing evaluator bias.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
schroeding 5y ago
At least in STEM: Create an exercise that contains a technical term that does not exist, and create a page containg it with a plausible, but wrong solution for the excercise. Make sure that the page is easily found with Google. Give everyone who solved it using the wrong solution a failing mark. Personalize every exam. Create a pool of exercises and choose n exercises per student, based on the student id. Easily done if the sheets are already LaTeX anyway. Create heavy time pressure. Cheating is very hard when even completing all exercises regularly is almost impossible. (Lovingly called "Zeitklausur" in German, lit. "time exam", it's normal that students are unable to finish those in time) Create exams that don't just test the ability to vomit knowledge, but test the ability to use that knowledge, and let students explain in their own words. Replace the exam with multiple small projects and presentations. All of those things were used by different chairs / departments in my university :-) Nothing will prevent "someone else writes the exam for another student" with absolute certainty, yes. But neither does proctoring software.

ketzu 5y ago

And the ones that do propose alternatives do so from a very narrow point of view. Oral exams are much more time consuming and simply not practical in many situations. Projects and seminar papers have similar problems, especially in early semesters.

notreallyserio 5y ago

Have students sit for an exam and then follow up with a question or two (from a pool of N), live, to see if they actually understand the material. We're paying hundreds or thousands each, they can easily afford to spend the time.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago

There's a discussion upthread right now about making the whole problem irrelevant by switching to open book tests and/or having a 5-minute conversation with the student to make sure that they actually have some clue what they're talking about.

hackermailman 5y ago

Best way is do away with exams and have projects graded instead. Math write a survey paper on the subject that demonstrates expertise, then orally defend it on live chat where you can't easily cheat, that's what my school did but only had european accreditation whereas regional US likes 20th century examination style.

spoonjim 5y ago
Anything subjectively graded like a project is a big vector for introducing evaluator bias.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

schroeding 5y ago

At least in STEM: Create an exercise that contains a technical term that does not exist, and create a page containg it with a plausible, but wrong solution for the excercise. Make sure that the page is easily found with Google. Give everyone who solved it using the wrong solution a failing mark. Personalize every exam. Create a pool of exercises and choose n exercises per student, based on the student id. Easily done if the sheets are already LaTeX anyway. Create heavy time pressure. Cheating is very hard when even completing all exercises regularly is almost impossible. (Lovingly called "Zeitklausur" in German, lit. "time exam", it's normal that students are unable to finish those in time) Create exams that don't just test the ability to vomit knowledge, but test the ability to use that knowledge, and let students explain in their own words. Replace the exam with multiple small projects and presentations. All of those things were used by different chairs / departments in my university :-) Nothing will prevent "someone else writes the exam for another student" with absolute certainty, yes. But neither does proctoring software.