Remote Proctoring

[jimbogumbo]

A big topic at my campus: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/04/14/um-dearborn-closed-door-remote-proctoring

[marshwiggle]

A big topic at my campus: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/04/14/um-dearborn-closed-door-remote-proctoring

Since we went remote last March, how to handle the issues around remote exams has been the main (and virtually only) topic of every department meeting.

[apl68]

I've been surprised that our library has had so few requests for our (free) proctoring services.  Maybe the fact that we weren't able to offer it during the spring 2020 shutdown put them off.  We've been open for business this entire academic year.

[Caracal]

A big topic at my campus: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/04/14/um-dearborn-closed-door-remote-proctoring

Since we went remote last March, how to handle the issues around remote exams has been the main (and virtually only) topic of every department meeting.

I am thankful that I'm in a field where it is easy enough to design exams where the benefits of cheating are limited. Students can certainly cheat on my essay exams in various ways, but it is not likely to lead to good grades. Even for just getting a B or C, cheating really isn't likely to save time or be more effective than just taking decent notes and looking at them.

[jimbogumbo]

A big topic at my campus: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/04/14/um-dearborn-closed-door-remote-proctoring

Since we went remote last March, how to handle the issues around remote exams has been the main (and virtually only) topic of every department meeting.

I am thankful that I'm in a field where it is easy enough to design exams where the benefits of cheating are limited. Students can certainly cheat on my essay exams in various ways, but it is not likely to lead to good grades. Even for just getting a B or C, cheating really isn't likely to save time or be more effective than just taking decent notes and looking at them.

We've (math department) for the most part been doing exams unproctored the last year. Lock down browsers imo are ineffective unless you limit the exam time to something that is not sound pedagogical practice. We will be back to "normal" in the Fall, but will still have issues with many online students as we've now been barred as a campus from using proctoring services we previously had access to.

[Caracal]

A big topic at my campus: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/04/14/um-dearborn-closed-door-remote-proctoring

Since we went remote last March, how to handle the issues around remote exams has been the main (and virtually only) topic of every department meeting.

I am thankful that I'm in a field where it is easy enough to design exams where the benefits of cheating are limited. Students can certainly cheat on my essay exams in various ways, but it is not likely to lead to good grades. Even for just getting a B or C, cheating really isn't likely to save time or be more effective than just taking decent notes and looking at them.

We've (math department) for the most part been doing exams unproctored the last year. Lock down browsers imo are ineffective unless you limit the exam time to something that is not sound pedagogical practice. We will be back to "normal" in the Fall, but will still have issues with many online students as we've now been barred as a campus from using proctoring services we previously had access to.

Yeah, it seems like a very difficult thing to deal with. I do think there are some real issues with forcing students to be monitored in their homes, especially by third parties. On the other hand, telling faculty that they need to completely redesign their exams in the middle of a pandemic isn't really realistic either...

[mythbuster]

Redesigning the exams etc. only gets you so far. I write highly application based questions, that are not Google-able and have multiple versions of the exams. On my last midterm I had students who gave the answer to Question A when they were asked Question B. So even with all my efforts, I still have blatant evidence of cheating. And yes, there are times when an exam is the appropriate assessment.
    Up to this point we were using the Lockdown Browser without web proctoring. As result of this incident, we have upped to the full web proctoring for the final. 

The solution that I saw to this for Finals was to have all rooms on campus proctored during business hours so students could come with their laptops and take the exam in a physical proctored room with distancing. Of course, this would require an all hands on deck approach to handle capacity, so it was never discussed.

[the_geneticist]

I've decided to not use any proctoring services.  Mostly because of the invasion of privacy, but also because many of our students just don't have a new enough computer.  I'm using the question bank + harder questions approach.  And making sure that I set up the exam so they CAN'T see the questions or answers or their responses until everyone is finished.
I'll let you know in a week how that worked in my freshman class.

[Parasaurolophus]

I've decided to not use any proctoring services.  Mostly because of the invasion of privacy, but also because many of our students just don't have a new enough computer.  I'm using the question bank + harder questions approach.  And making sure that I set up the exam so they CAN'T see the questions or answers or their responses until everyone is finished.
I'll let you know in a week how that worked in my freshman class.

That's pretty much what I've been doing. I don't need to waste my own time dealing with tech issues related to proctoring, fielding panicked emails, etc.

The result is not as pedagogical sound as I might like--especially because I've jettisoned essay questions and a lot of short answer questions--but it's good enough, and my grades follow a normal distribution.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Instead of remote proctoring, I've made everything open book and note and asked students not to work with each other. They have a relatively short time to complete the test and I doubt that having their books or the Internet or the help of a friend will make a difference if they are unprepared. I'm wouldn't be surprised if a few students find ways to cheat effectively, but I'm willing to accept that to create a better exam experience for the vast majority of students. (I do send things through a plagiarism checker and that occasionally catch cheating.)

[PScientist]

Last semester, (some of) our students were posting exam questions on Chegg and getting professional solutions back within 10 minutes.  Of course, as soon as the first student got a solution, it was searchable for everyone. 

This semester, we have generally been having remote class, but requiring the students to take paper exams in person (separated into multiple rooms with lots of distance).  We don't think we can win a technological arms race here.

[kiana]

This semester, we have generally been having remote class, but requiring the students to take paper exams in person (separated into multiple rooms with lots of distance).  We don't think we can win a technological arms race here.

We (my department, which is math) are trying very hard to get our college to let us do this.

There are some courses where we feel that we can ask pedagogically sound questions in an unproctored manner (math for liberal arts, for example), but our algebra and calculus courses for future STEM majors are just not amenable to this. This applies especially to the noncredit algebra courses.

Pretty much all of the solutions suggested just don't work.

Larger question bank? Irrelevant, the issue is not so much collaboration or chegg, it's the damned apps, especially photomath.

Have them show work? Photomath gives steps if you pay.

Authentic applications? The authentic applications for a beginning algebra course are in precalc and calc; furthermore, if they manage to figure out what they should do computationally, they can stick it into photomath after that.

Rewrite our courses to utilize technology and focus on concepts? Not if we want it to transfer. We stopped offering college algebra with technology (actually was a great course for people in non-technical majors, some awesome applications) because nobody would accept it. Our primary transfer schools don't even allow calculators in STEM major math.

Ask more conceptual questions? Doing that, but they still need to be able to compute for the next courses.

[mleok]

This semester, we have generally been having remote class, but requiring the students to take paper exams in person (separated into multiple rooms with lots of distance).  We don't think we can win a technological arms race here.

We (my department, which is math) are trying very hard to get our college to let us do this.

There are some courses where we feel that we can ask pedagogically sound questions in an unproctored manner (math for liberal arts, for example), but our algebra and calculus courses for future STEM majors are just not amenable to this. This applies especially to the noncredit algebra courses.

Pretty much all of the solutions suggested just don't work.

Larger question bank? Irrelevant, the issue is not so much collaboration or chegg, it's the damned apps, especially photomath.

Have them show work? Photomath gives steps if you pay.

Authentic applications? The authentic applications for a beginning algebra course are in precalc and calc; furthermore, if they manage to figure out what they should do computationally, they can stick it into photomath after that.

Rewrite our courses to utilize technology and focus on concepts? Not if we want it to transfer. We stopped offering college algebra with technology (actually was a great course for people in non-technical majors, some awesome applications) because nobody would accept it. Our primary transfer schools don't even allow calculators in STEM major math.

Ask more conceptual questions? Doing that, but they still need to be able to compute for the next courses.

I'm in a math department as well, and I wasn't aware of photomath, that's truly disturbing. We've been having a lot of cheating with Chegg, and it does indeed seem like a soul draining battle.

[jimbogumbo]

This semester, we have generally been having remote class, but requiring the students to take paper exams in person (separated into multiple rooms with lots of distance).  We don't think we can win a technological arms race here.

We (my department, which is math) are trying very hard to get our college to let us do this.

There are some courses where we feel that we can ask pedagogically sound questions in an unproctored manner (math for liberal arts, for example), but our algebra and calculus courses for future STEM majors are just not amenable to this. This applies especially to the noncredit algebra courses.

Pretty much all of the solutions suggested just don't work.

Larger question bank? Irrelevant, the issue is not so much collaboration or chegg, it's the damned apps, especially photomath.

Have them show work? Photomath gives steps if you pay.

Authentic applications? The authentic applications for a beginning algebra course are in precalc and calc; furthermore, if they manage to figure out what they should do computationally, they can stick it into photomath after that.

Rewrite our courses to utilize technology and focus on concepts? Not if we want it to transfer. We stopped offering college algebra with technology (actually was a great course for people in non-technical majors, some awesome applications) because nobody would accept it. Our primary transfer schools don't even allow calculators in STEM major math.

Ask more conceptual questions? Doing that, but they still need to be able to compute for the next courses.

I'm in a math department as well, and I wasn't aware of photomath, that's truly disturbing. We've been having a lot of cheating with Chegg, and it does indeed seem like a soul draining battle.

It's worse than that. There is also a new one I've seen advertised on national tv that isn't on this list: https://www.educationalappstore.com/best-apps/best-math-solver-apps

[kiana]

I'm in a math department as well, and I wasn't aware of photomath, that's truly disturbing. We've been having a lot of cheating with Chegg, and it does indeed seem like a soul draining battle.

It uses some extremely unusual methods for certain specific types of problems; for example, the paired logic approach it uses for nonlinear inequalities is nothing like anything we teach and since this level of student is often very shaky on intersection/union of intervals they don't have any idea what it's doing, they just copy it down. There are some extremely distinctive oddities about the way it handles rational coefficients and equations as well.