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Students Looking For Easy A Target Online Courses, Where Cheating Is Easier

Posted by timothy on from the cloud-this-cloud-that-cloud-jump-ropes dept.

An anonymous reader writes "As online courses become mainstream, some students are finding they are often easy to game. A group of clever students at one public university describe how they used a Google Doc during on open-book test for a new kind of 'cloud cheating.'" Instead of "cloud" all the time, can't we switch it up with "on the internet"?

8 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. In my day there was an easier way to cheat to an A by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Simply take a course where you were already familiar with the subject matter. (I really suspect a lot of the students in the language classes I took were already fluent in the language. Boy did that suck for me.)

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  2. MBA? by grasshoppa · · Score: 5, Funny

    A group of clever students at one public university describe how they used a Google Doc during on open-book test for a new kind of 'cloud cheating.'"
    Instead of "cloud" all the time, can't we switch it up with "on the internet"?

    Must have been business majors.

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  3. Nonsense! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Everyone knows that everyone with a piece of paper saying they graduated college is intelligent and deserving of a job. They shouldn't have to show you that they know what they're doing! You should just immediately give them a job!

    1. Re:Nonsense! by networkBoy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ha ha ha ha ha
      I know you are being sarcastic, but two of the best motivated people in my lab have on degree. One has a HS diploma, the other a GED. The one w/ the diploma is a senior technician, worked up from the bottom over 12 years and outperforms the recent grad engineers at most of the work (similar job profiles between Sr. tech and Jr. engineer). The GED tech has been with the company for about a year and is starting the working from the bottom up. Both of these guys are way better at their jobs and motivated compared to the average BS degree holder.

      Realistically this is a rare trait in people, but I'll take one of these guys any day over the average degreed person.
      -nB

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  4. You ares testing students the wrong way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When I started university we had Calculus, among other things, during our first year. You were allowed to bring anything you wanted into the exam room: books, notes, a computer. This was because, unless you had studied hard and done lots of exercises, there was no way you would pass the exam. That's how you test people, not with tech bingo or a/b/c/d answer questions.

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    1. Re:You ares testing students the wrong way by fiziko · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I went to a great school that allowed calculators on calculus tests. Why? In the prof's words: "because there's no way they will help you answer the questions I wrote for you, but paperweights can be useful the way these desktops are sloped."

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  5. Udacity and Pearson VUE by skedar · · Score: 5, Informative

    This won't be an issue for long, because online classes (I have in mind Udacity and MITx) were not designed to have online exams in the first place. They said from the beginning that exams will be held in test centers under surveillance. It is not implemented yet, as MITx is currently a prototype, but we are getting there. Udacity just partnered with Pearson VUE to hold exams in their test centers. Pearson VUE has about 4000 test centers in 170 countries.
    It will most likely still be possible to take online exams, but the certificate earned for completion will have much less weight than a certificate earned by taking exams in a test center.

  6. Re:more tests need to be open book / open google by Znork · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If they can pass the test using only google, then they're certainly what in the eyes of that test passes for a good programmer. Of course, one might question the reliability and usefulness of a test that can be passed using only google, but the test was as useless before as it would pass 'crammers' who may have as little understanding of the subject as the 'googler'.

    I suspect that a lot of complaints about 'internet assisted' cheating are partly due to the educators getting caught with easy but low value methods of testing and assessment.