Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Colleges Stepping Up Anti-Cheating Technology

Posted by kdawson on from the spy-vs.-spy dept.

Bruce Schneier's blog highlights a New York Times piece on high-tech methods for detecting student cheating. Schneier notes, "The measures used to prevent cheating during tests remind me of casino security measures." "No gum is allowed during an exam: chewing could disguise a student's speaking into a hands-free cellphone to an accomplice outside. The 228 computers that students use are recessed into desk tops so that anyone trying to photograph the screen — using, say, a pen with a hidden camera, in order to help a friend who will take the test later — is easy to spot. Scratch paper is allowed — but it is stamped with the date and must be turned in later. When a proctor sees something suspicious, he records the student's real-time work at the computer and directs an overhead camera to zoom in, and both sets of images are burned onto a CD for evidence." The Times article quotes from research published a few months back suggesting that the more you copy homework, the lower your grades.

6 of 439 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmm ... by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 3, Funny

    So these schools are buying solutions to their problem of students cheating rather than figuring it out themselves? Isn't that what they're trying to prevent? /sarcasm

  2. It's not cheating! by AnonymousClown · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's being a 'team player'.

    --
    RIP America

    July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001

  3. Why would Bruce Schneier worry about this? by jeffmeden · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bruce Schneier already knows Alice AND Bob's secret; all he has to do to detect cheating is eye a test taker until their lies burst into flames. Nothing hides from Bruce Schneier... Nothing.

  4. Re:I say let them cheat by grepya · · Score: 3, Funny

    Go ahead, let them cheat. They'll be paying for it once they get a job based on their "degree" and suddenly realize they don't know fuckall about what they're doing.

    From TFA:
    “Copying homework is a leading indicator of becoming a business major,”

          I leave the punchlines to the public....

  5. Re:Retarded by boristdog · · Score: 3, Funny

    Listen, If you're going to make sense and ask people to do their jobs properly, I'm going to have to ask you to leave /.

    And the Internet in general.

  6. Re:I've noticed something related to that by Subm · · Score: 3, Funny

    their version of teaching English was route memorization

    Naturally they have to memorize routes because China could block Google maps at any time.