One of the things Ted Tyson, who was recently appointed Director of Client Services for Software Secure, really likes about his new role is that it gives him an opportunity to speak with clients regularly. They often share anecdotes about cheating in their schools, and you would be amazed at the ingenuity of students…
From time to time, we will share these brief stories on Multiple Choice in the hopes that forewarned is forearmed. Knowing what tricks have been pulled elsewhere may help you avoid them in your school.
Today's story was reported by the Director of Distance Education at a community college that recently had an issue with student cheating in its health care training department.
At the school, faculty members provide students exams through WebCT to gain the benefits of online testing. However, students in programs such as nursing and home health care would access other websites which contained simple paths to exam answers.
For example, students would be asked a series of symptoms and would be required to diagnose the illness from which the fictitious patient was suffering. In a number of cases, instead of answering the questions on their own, students opened up a second browser window on their computers and visited a website that enabled them to input symptoms detailed in the exam and obtain quick answers.
The happy ending, of course, for this community college, was to use Securexam Browser to lock down the environment. As a result, faculty can still reap the benefits of using online testing with WebCT AND be confident that the students in its health care programs actually know, remember and can repeat the critical learning.
