"I don't know why anyone would pay $30 to get caught cheating."

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Names changed to protect privacy.

We proctor exams for all sorts of students at my library and charge a $30 fee. [Student] was scheduled to take an online exam Wednesday at 4:30. She arrived and I started getting her set up. She asked if she could be in a private room to take the exam so she wouldn’t be distracted, and I explained that our only computers were on the floor (i.e., out in the public space). She pointed out that she had brought in her laptop and could take it using that.

I reviewed the proctor instructions and found nothing to suggest that it was allowed for her to use her own computer (pencils and scratch paper were marked “no,” so I figured if private computers were allowed, it would say somewhere). I explained that it did not appear to be allowed. She stated that she had been allowed to do that (her computer, private room) at another branch. I apologized and said I did not see that I had the ability to allow it.

Taking her over to the homework computers, she asked if she could sit at a different one from the one I was sitting her at “so she wouldn’t be facing the door,” again citing the distraction; coincidentally this preferred computer faced such that I would be unable to see the screen. I explained that as her exam proctor, I needed to be able to see her screen. I got her logged on and her payment processed and returned to the desk.

Amid the goings-on of being at the desk, I did not monitor as closely as I would have liked, but about 5 minutes before she finished, I did notice the Wikipedia logo in the top-left corner of the screen (most of the online exams students take have a rather identifiable look even from quite a distance, because the questions are set off with wide gray bars, so when that isn’t what the screen looks like, it’s quite noticeable). My attention caught, I then observed her almost continuously for the remainder of her time, and saw her repeatedly switching between the exam screen, Wikipedia, and Google. She would leave the exam screen, search for something on Google or Wikipedia, look over the results, then return to the exam screen, make a selection, scroll down some, and repeat.

After about 5 minutes of this, she appeared to finish her exam, closed all her open windows, and began gathering her belongings. I asked if she was finished, and how she thought she did (which is my custom), and she said she was and that it went well. I did not feel it was my place to challenge or accuse her of anything in that context, but when (in the online proctoring database) I indicated that she had completed the exam, I summarized what I saw under the option labeled “student completed exam but there were issues” and indicated “yes” to the question “Do you suspect the student was cheating?”

Friday morning, Professor [Jones] at [college] contacted me for further information, and after I detailed what I saw and what had transpired he informed me that (a) I was absolutely correct to prevent the student from using her own computer and a private space to take the exam, (b) that this student’s exam scores from [OtherBranch] she has been proctored at are “markedly higher” than her scores on exams taken here at [MyBranch], © that there was absolutely no approved reason for her to have been using Google, Wikipedia, or any other site during her exam, and (d) that this student will receive a 0 on her final exam.

He further remarked on the subject of proctoring, which amused me greatly, “I don’t know why anyone would pay $30 just to get caught cheating.”

2

I’m surprised the computers aren’t set up to default to a very stripped down internet when whatever testing software you have is in use.

3

Thank you for actually doing the job of a proctor. Seriously. Thank you.

4

I agree with Inner Stickler on this. When the test is in progress, virtually all other websites should be blocked.

I also agree with IvoryTowerDenizen. Good show.

I guess I’m just agreeable today.

5

Well, I disagree with all of y’all. Knead2Know did not act properly, as there should have been more pointing and laughing. :wink:

6

Good point. I agree with you, too!

:smiley:

7

Etruscan!

Knead2Know, to your knowledge has the student protested what happened?

8

A printout of the browser history would make a damning piece of evidence.

9

I think (though I am not sure) that, at public libraries in Memphis, the browser history is wiped each time the computer is rebooted. I could easily be wrong,though.

10

I’m surprised that a proctor wouldn’t intervene in some way, to order the Google window be closed, or simply to stop the student from completing the exam once cheating has been detected. Bit I certainly don’t know the rules of proctoring.

11

We inquired with IT about obtaining the browser history, but the machines are reimaged nighhtly, so by Friday it was doubly gone. To my knowledge, she has not appealed her grade Hell, she may not even know her grade yet.

12

As a proctor, are you instructed to not challenge someone who you believe is cheating on the spot?

Hi 5 to you for turning her sorry ass in.

13

No, but there’s no real upside to a confrontation. The school provides a means to report suspected cheating, and that’s what I take to be the preferred means of handlling the situation.

14

Yeah, I would think nothing good would come of a confrontation.

But I don’t think I’d have been able to keep a straight face after asking her how she thought she did.

15

Do you know what the subject was? Because I have in my mind that it was probably a rather easy class. Or if it’s a hard class, I’d wonder how the student ever got far enough to take it.

16

There is a program that can be run in the background that will shut down the monitor if the test-taker opens an application that isn’t explicitly whitelisted (like internet explorer or calculator). One of those might be handy, but they’re also a pain to configure.

This is what worries me about online classes. It’s just too easy to get someone else to do the work for you, or to use “unauthorized” reference material with improper supervision. It really devalues the degree.

Anecdotally, I have been approached by a former friend who offered to pay me to take her algebra quizzes online. :frowning:

17

The exam was on medical terminology. I only know because a different student took the same exam earlier in the week (it’s finals time: we’ve been insanely busy), and she said it was 100 terms out of the 400+ they had to learn.

18

What I find interesting is all the uncertainty in the OP acting as Proctor.

She didn’t know for sure whether using a private PC was OK. She didn’t know for sure that test taking in a private room was not OK. Assuming for a moment the student was telling the truth, it appears that proctors at other locations also don’t know these things, or choose not to enforce them.

My point is *not *to attack the proctor, our OP, who used good judgment in an uncertain situation. Rather it’s to question what kind of slipshod process the school went through to outsource test proctoring while providing no guidance or standards on how that (fairly important) process should be executed. That’s negligent at best.

19

I’ll only offer this comment, as I really don’t disagree with anything else you said: I’m a dude.

Knead
Wishes these things were less ambiguous

20

Glad to hear that this cheater is apparently going to be punished.
It’s sad that someone would be so stupid that they would try to get away with cheating RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU like that.
Of course, it bothers me that apparently she was able to get away with it several times at the other testing place.

I think this is why so many idiots end up in positions of power in society…because some people manage to slip through the cracks in the system and get by without ever having to actually prove they have a minimum of sense or smarts.