Boston University Investigating Possible Cheating in Online Tests
“My colleagues and I knew the transition to remote teaching would present new challenges”
This is one of the obvious potential problems with online learning.
NBC News in Boston reports:
BU Investigates Whether Students Cheated on Online Tests Amid Shutdown: Report
Boston University is investigating allegations that some students cheated while taking online exams from home amid the coronavirus crisis, the Boston Globe reports.
The school is investigating whether those students used online tutoring services, such as Chegg, to answer questions while taking exams from home. BU is focusing specifically on classes in physics and chemistry.
It remains unclear how the university was alerted to the situation, but a chemistry professor who emailed his students about what happened told the Globe that the situation was an “aberration.”
“My colleagues and I knew the transition to remote teaching would present new challenges,” Binyomin Abrams told the paper.
“Online learning presents challenges in conducting assessments that are not the same as in the classroom,” the professor said. “I’ll leave it at that.”
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Comments
Did no one see this coming? Unless you’re recording the student’s desktop and timing his responses, you can’t possibly stop this.
(The first to is to make sure he doesn’t have other browsers/tabs/apps open that he’s typing the questions into. The second is to try and prevent the usefulness of him using other devices to ask the questions.)
The first might be possible with whatever test answer program looking at what else is open (and that program does not have “tabs”).
The second… I am not sure is possible. A different Internet provider on a different device… I doubt online and remote can be caught.
There always was a reason for proctored tests for correspondence classes.
My institution has just signed a contract with Honorlock to provide online test proctoring, which is not cheap. It’s also not 100% reliable, but it’s better than nothing, apparently, if students are willing to keep cheating.