Spring Break
Cheating the system
Troy University's test webcams aren't enough to stop determined cheaters, says Kevin Alexander
By: Kevin Alexander
Issue date: 6/27/07 Section: Opinion
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Educators have, for decades, thrown up roadblocks to prevent lowlifes like me from succeeding through deceiving, but the only air-tight method to curb cheating is to sit a student in a room in the plain view of a supervisor. It's tried and true technology.
Troy University in Alabama is trying the second-best option with its distance learning courses - a mandatory webcam that can take a 360-degree image of its surroundings and flag suspicious activity for professors to view and make judgment calls. Unfortunately, second-best just means that cheaters will have to be a little more creative, and the privacy concerns and financial costs are too great to justify a ham-fisted maneuver like this.
Distance courses that focus on objective content and regular testing are ridiculously simple to cheat on. Get a friend - get a whole bunch of them - and have a test-taking party. This won't be possible with a webcam staring you in the face, but I can think of a few ways around it off the top of my head.
n Stick a friend under your table and pass the questions to him or her discreetly. Any decent cheater should be able to pull this off.
n Connect two monitors to the same computer, and stick the other monitor in another room for someone else to look at. Devise an auditory system for passing answers (like, "bang your fist against the wall once for 'a,' twice for 'b,' and so on). Or just have a friend come up with the answers, compile them in a text document and send it to you over e-mail or over a local network.
n Instant message the questions to a friend who is helping you out. Is your internet access locked down by the test-taking software? Then connect two computers directly, throw up a firewall and make sure that the software doesn't have access to your home network. Talk to your friend directly over the local network.
There are too many easy paths around a webcam to justify its price tag to students, which comes to $125 per camera. That's a really high price to be paying for any webcam, especially one that's going to be collecting dust in between tests.
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