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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.
Here was my plan:
And, if you see someone cheating, turn them in accordance with the Honor Code, because, damn it, you studied and you don't want to fall in the middle of the curve just because everyone else cheated (This did happen to me once -- a copy of the answers to the test for the prior year got circulated among a group of students and the prof. was too lazy to change it; so, anyone who had seen the old test already knew the answers and received an A. I studied my ass off and only got a C-.)
What the hell did you learn from this? This is the most retarded technical exam I've ever heard of.
Are any of these skills useful? How about in ten years?
Who cheats anymore? You're almost guaranteed to get caught.
And yet, for BUSINESS students, it's become practically a requirement of the degree- which is why our economy in the United States is in depression.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Man, that would frustrate me beyond belief.
I know I've already got two +5 interesting comments up here, but I sure do like talking about how the schools work around here. Being a fresh young hipster its all still very fresh in my mind. And all of my friends are still in school, because they took a year or two off out of high school, or dropped out and are now going back, or are persuing longer 8 year degrees.
But basically, there are (practically) 4 campuses in our city. You can go to the University, the prestigious and expensive one, which has about half of its focus on Engineering and the other half is split amongst every other faculty. We also have the College - which is now being upgraded to a university, though I don't know what that really gets them, other than perhaps more funding. It has always kind of been the place to go for General studies when you haven't decided what you want to do, but they also have a few business courses and things along those lines. It's not a bad school but it just doesn't have the specialty focus that the other campuses do at producing top knotch students. There is the Academy of Arts and Design, so basically if you are a little more into artsy stuff, you can go there*. Then there is the Polytechnic, which I went to. It was very trades skills oriented. The major areas were Mechanics, Computers, Cullinary Arts, and Medical training, probably in that order from biggest to smallest.
The university and the polytechnic were always in a kind of competition/accord about their computer sciences. The university was very theoretical. The polytechnic was very practical. I never learned Binary computation, or ASCII tables, or anything like that because those skills are not usually called upon in most working jobs. The university students probably know how a computer works more from top to bottom, transistors to code. I have more experience in actually writing codes and putting things together. Now, the impression I get is that more companies in our city prefer the polytechnic students - simply because they can get them working right away. Less training kind of thing. However the university degree looks a lot nicer anywhere outside of the country. It's created this kind of weird rift in that students decide what campus they want to go to dependant on where they want to work. "Oh your girlfriend will be doing Grad School in England? Why not get a degree from the university since it'll be better recognized over there and you can get a job over there?"
There were a few students (I can recall 3 at least) that said they had spent 1 year at the university and switched over to the Polytechnic for their Computer degrees. Mostly because they favoured skills over theory. I know companies in my city have also started to feel this way, but its kind of upsetting that polytechnics don't get the respect they deserve. If I were to move to Europe, they might not even consider me for an interview based on my resume, even though I have the skills they'd want.
*As a side note - the art school most interesting campus, just because of the people there. Everyone either was taking a picture, holding a canvas, or had a unique and loud hair style/make up. You felt out of place wearing jeans a t shirt. Lots of Macs too.