Denmark's education minister will let high schools check students computers
dr.dk
dr.dk
It used to be pen and paper, maybe a slide rule. You couldn't cheat except by bringing in extra books or papers which were easy to detect.
Then they allowed electric scientific calculators which were checked prior exams. You could theoretically store some meaningful constants in their memory but it wouldn't have been very useful.
Then laptops... what a can of worms! Even making read-only terminals available for students during exams would open up loads of potential holes for cheating. But that's nothing in comparison to private laptops. Even private laptops booting the school's own USB images would be highly untrusted but letting students run their own software and hoping school staff to find any problems by inspecting them is, from the policy viewpoint, just going bananas.
In fact, if I were a non-hacker student I would oppose strongly to the whole idea because I could be certain that at least some of my peers would be using their laptops to hack themselves an advantage over me and most others.
You are right that pen and paper was complex enough. In fact there are many studies that show that children learn better when writing on and reading from paper than on and from screens. In picking schools for my kids I will take the use of paper and real books into very strong account.
Also, if you really want that you are probably pretty bad off in most societies. Sadly, many people get away with cheating (criminals, corrupt politicians/companies, etc).
I know this is not that common, but for good tests, cheating like that should be irrelevant.
In Finland they use a custom live Linux image from a USB stick during the major exams: https://github.com/digabi/digabi-os That is much harder to bypass. There's an old blog post (2013) about its security: http://globatic.blogspot.dk/2013/08/evaluating-security-of-d...
The Danish education minister (Merete Riisager) is proposing allowing schools to check their students' private computers, as well as their social media activity (and other internet activity), to avoid cheating occurring during tests/exams.
The ministry also clarifies that the schools should not be allow to force access to this information, but can demand access to a student's computer as a prerequisite for their access to the test/exam.
Should a student refuse, the school should be able to confiscate their equipment for up to 24 hours or completely expelling the student from the school. (Note: The article isn't clear whether this means from just the exam or indefinitely.)
It's important to note this is still a proposal. That is, it is in the very early stages of becoming bill or even law. Right now it is in the hearing process.
So with this proposal, if one refuses to let the school check one's equipment, one can still attend the test/exam, but without one's equipment. Or one can be expelled.
There are some tests; ie. essay writing where students sit in a big hall for up to 4 hours and write their essay (as shown on the photo).
Here they are allowed (but not required) to write on their own computer but they are of course not allowed to use the internet to get someone external to write their essay for them.
The possibility of control is a measure to prevent that.
You are correct that I neglected to mention that computers are not required during the test. But I felt I maintained the same tone as the article.
That way you also avoid accidentally bringing along any books, old essays or other remedies you're not allowed to bring.
Note: IMO, people shouldn't cheat :)
I remember at least one test like that when I was at school (in the early 90s). There was a special printed form with places where you would mark your answers (to multiple-choice questions) by filling in rectangles with a pencil. These were read by computer.
Of course, this would be even easier to implement now. No need for students to carry computers or a fancy SPA to administer the test.
(Assuming you don't need adaptive testing.)
When I did the HTX (technical/science oriented highschool) in Denmark they even experimented with internet access for essays, etc.
IMO, we should focus on sniffing out cheating by good old fashion looking people over the shoulder. And focus our attention on teaching kids not to cheat.
Perhaps trig, calculus, differential equations, etc. aren't "serious" enough??
And okay, you can do lots of math... even it all without tools. I remember having a basic math test that was fully analog. But...
while knowning all the basics is useful. e.g. knowing how to compute a square root. It is also important to know how to combine all these things and reach higher.
Tools let's you reach higher.
You must be joking. There is no math course I’ve ever heard of from 1st grade through graduate school which should “need a CAS” (or even an electronic calculator of any kind) on exams to demonstrate understanding of the content of the course or fluency with its proofs or problem solving tools.
In most cases designing exams around CAS use (or calculator use in general) makes them far worse at testing student understanding or problem solving skill.
The reason calculators are used in mathematics exams is because calculator vendors (especially Texas Instruments) were very effective at making back-room deals with textbook publishers and standardized test sponsors (and sometimes public officials), and ran decades of great subversive marketing aimed at anxious parents. Not because of any particular pedagogical value of the calculators.
Tools like Mathematica or Maple can be very helpful for mathematical research or mathematical modeling in other technical fields, and are worth learning for undergraduates, but should by no means be used on exams.
If you want to get students to demonstrate their use of a CAS, give some real-world modeling problems, and then give them a few days to make a mathematical model (using the CAS, or whatever other tools they prefer) and write up a mini paper about it.
IMO, a clean format, or just removing sensitive files to a backup drive seems reasonable.
Some exams are divided in two (English, math etc): one short part with nothing but paper and pencil and one longer part with everything allowed (except communication with others).
In recent years the publishing houses have gone digital in a big way. Some school no longer provide books for the student - the school buys subscriptions for online books. Until this year internet access during exams were forbidden (with the exception of access to dictionaries). This year a new law adjusted the rules. A wide coaliation of parties including the all three parties of the government decided that internet access should be allowed to.
This summer a few students were caught cheating. During the written exam they uploaded the paper/exercises to a firm that offered to write the paper for them - for a fee of course. As the rules are now only the student is breaking the law.
The minister felt a need to react and sent out a statement that internet access were to be banned. However she forgot to ask the coalition behind the high school reform. Even the two other parties in the government disagreed. In short: internet access will probably not be banned.
The latest idea from the minister is to allow high schools to search the computer of a student, if the school has a suspicion of cheating. (The irony is that the minister is from the most liberal party in danish politics).
Cheating is of course a serious matter, but the current proposal seems to be somewhat overreaching. It will hopefully not get the enough votes.
Question: How would you prevent cheating in an exam where internet access is allowed?
If a student wants privacy, they simply use a personal device.
Ask questions that require demonstration of understanding on the student's part; not merely parrotting facts.
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=da&tl=en&u=h...
IMO, requiring the use of a school supplied computer isn't the worst either. And then you could just set it up with a key logger and a screen recorder.
It was a hell of a lot more fun than the actual "computing classes", which were basically just learning to use MS Word.
I find it kind of weird that they use their own computers on a test.
Also: "The draft states, among other things, that the examiner must give the school access to investigate the content of resources, search history and log files as well as the use of materials, social media accounts, and further on the Internet. "
No it fucking doesn't. Not on any planet I'd be willing to live on.
Ridicule and shame are appropriate here.
Maybe I'm over reacting. Probably.
It's one thing to announce a policy, another to kick out a kid who claims to have honestly forgotten a password.
Bring a netbook.. or backup your laptop and do a clean install before going to the exam.