Slashdot Mirror
Colleges Stepping Up Anti-Cheating Technology
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.
Going through college, I had classes like this. The hardest tests were open book, open note, bring your calculator tests. God help you if it was take home.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
"...subsequent analyses turned up an interesting trend: Copying homework is a leading indicator of becoming a business major..."
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The exams themselves also tended to be modified homework problems; although not exact, they would require the same thought and techniques the homework did.