Talking about integrity
I believe it is important to come up with a way to do online exams and protect the integrity of those exams without having to set up additional time and space for a proctor. Employers are starting to see more fraudulant degrees. When teaching online courses acrossed the nation this would be quite difficult as well as costly. Any ideas?
Sherry,
Good point - it really just depends on what you are trying to use the quiz for. Some LMS's allow you to create a bank of questions, and then auto-rotate what is included.
Best,
Jon
I like having the exams timed so the student does not have the opportunity to look up every answer. I also think the questions should change each quarter to prevent students sharing information.
Debra:
I totally agree as Academic Integrity has been an issue that I have dealt with as well.
One change that is being implemented is changing as many mid-term exams to projects as possible.
We also do not let the students view their final exam results but do provide general feedback as to what topics were missed on the final exam.
Randomizing questions and/or having several different exams available during each session is one solution that might help with integrity.
Kim
Vivian,
Great point, more authentic assessments are definitely superior.
Jon
Exams are over rated. Rote memory doesn't indicate understanding or the ability to apply material. It would be much better to ascertain level of understanding by chatting or short answer essays. It is more time consuming to grade as an instructor but well worth it. As an instructor I have the benefit of learning from my students using this format as well. A win win in my opinion.
William - great example - thanks! Jon
Debra,
No matter what safeguards are in place, cheating can still occur. This is regardless of the delivery method. What I try to instill in my students is the value of knowing the material. I encourage them to be subject matter experts. That cannot be accomplished thru cheating. My favorite expression that gets students to think is “When you get called out of your home at 2:00 Am to fix a widget that’s down, there’s nobody there to copy off of. You must know the material.”
Charlotte:
The more we consider alternatives for onsite exams and proctored exams, the more wrok will be involved. For example, multiple equivalent versions of exams will have to be created. Even for short answer and essay type exams, i would rcommend that th questions be changed every offering. You mighthave heard of the kinds of student networks that can be established without an institution knowing and even be able to trace.
Satrohan
A couple of ways have been suggested in protecting the integrity of exams. Short answer and in a limited time frame seems to be the best solution. For one of my online courses, the exam was available for a limited number of days and we had two hours to complete it. The only way two individual could work on it at the same time is if they were in the same room and/or logged in and were able to send messages to each other.
Addititionally, one exam could be posted on one day and then the next day another one could be posted. Allowing only access to the quiz during this time would eliminate communication with other students. However, all of this would take some computer programming.
Gregory:
All intelligent questions. The majority of Course Delivery Platforms with which I am familiar possess the core set of deliver features as well as performance tracking. The answer is yes to all of your questions. In terms of releasing the exam at a certain date, for a certain time, for students in a diffeent time-zone, what we will have to do is release the exam for a long enough period to accommodate the time difference as the controlling factor in this situation is time to complete the exam. The other alternative is to group students by time-zone, and adminsiter the exam using the same parameters.
Satrohan
This is a great solution to this problem. Are all course delivery platforms created FAIRLY equal? If not, is the ability to produce parallel exams typically exclusive to out of the box software? Also, is the ability to deliver an exam to a remote student at a set-time a common feature of most course delivery platforms? Could the tests be available to a student over a period of time (example: within a 1 hour window)? How do you handle the time zone issue for exam delivery?
Sorry for the overflow of questions by the way.
Richard:
Finding a perfect solution is always more difficult than striving for what is practically achievable. Different types of test items are better suited for assessing different types of outcomes. Multiple Choice have serve their own purpose; so do short answers. I respect your suggestion to use assessment measures that are more labor-intensive as these will require th students to exert more mental effort---even if they were open-book exams with more than ample time to complete.
Satrohan
It may depend in part on the class size. For a small class it could almost be run like a seminar with each student getting a different set of open-ended short essay questions.
For a larger class one possibility is, as suggested, a pool of multiple choice questions with different ones assigned to different students. Perhaps these could also be somewhat open in the sense that they will require research (or at least a good knowledge of the subject)to find the correct answers.
Neither strategy is perfect, and both are a lot more labor-intensive but they put the burden more on the students to learn.
Kathleen:
Some institutions administer proctored exams to maintain exam integrity; however, your suggestion to use alternative measures is well taken.
Satrohan
Exam intregity is important, however exams may not be the only method to assess if a student learned. As educators we need to seek alternative evaluative methods that can assess learning has occured for all types of learners.
Kevin:
The number of questions seems high enough. If the Course Delivery Platform you are suing allows for randomization of item selection as well as randomization of options in a multiple choice question, you can use both and that can increase the variety.
Satrohan
I agree with the timing on quizzes. The tests I use have a time limit of 1 hour for 10 to 15 questions. For the quiz pool, there are 60 to 65 questions that are available for the quizzes, preventing chances of cheating
Kevin:
Using random test item selection to create parallel versions of the Quizzes would definitley minimize the chances of students excahnging answers. Timing the Quiz may also help. The key fo success here is to have a large enough item pool.
Satrohan
