Friday, June 22, 2007

Secure Online Exams

One the frequent concerns I hear about distance learning is that of how to deal with high-stakes testing (mid-terms, finals, etc.). People always ask

"how do you know students aren't cheating?"
and
"how do you know the student is taking the exam and not a ringer?"

The typical way we get round this is by creating exercises and projects in which we get to know our students' "voices." We get to know how they write. We get to know how they think. Subsequently, when we come across material in another voice we know something is up. Secure Software is in the (academic) news this week because they have a series of products that are designed to secure the online testing environment. I am going to take a look at what they have and see if their product range could be used here.

For those of you who are interested in what Secure Software is doing at Troy University you can follow these two links:

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