Can someone please explain to me why some schools require you to have a proctor to take finals or end of the semester exams if they are open- book? If these exams are open-book, why does a student need a proctor/supervision? What's the point? Any info would gladly be appreciated.
For one reason there may be a time limit. In my case I am taking an open book Statistics final next week. We are not allowed to use certain calculators or any outside resources. The proctor is used to ensure these things don't happen. Marnie
For another reason it is to make sure it is really you who is doing the work and that you have no contact with anyone else, nor internet access, etc. -Pat
I have proctored open book tests in one of my courses. The book is all that is allowed, no notes, and especially not the Study Guide that came with the course...which would be a far more helpful resource in this case than the book. So the proctor ensures that I bring ONLY the designated book into the exam room, have no contact with anyone else, and comply with time limits. Elizabeth
Now why or how would someone remember every nitty gritty detail such as formulas for financial analysis or say for the transmission of an RF antenna? See, most of the open-book exams (as far as I think) are case-study and application based so the real test is whether the person being tested can apply the knowledge they have, not how well they have memorized something... memorization defeats the purpose. I have seen many project managers and engineers keeping a whole shelf of books in their offices so that if they need to refer to them, they can do so at will. In my view, an open-book test simulates such a scenario. Also, it depends on the school to use open-book test where the application of the knowledge is involved... This could be in the subject areas of criminal justice, business, heck even engineering. Now, why supervision is needed is another issue... in a real project scenario, one may not have outside help (such as from a senior student). Also, the project may be time limited. To simulate this best, supervision is necessary to ensure the student has no outside help and time limits are enforced.
I've never taken a proctored DL exam, but I have taken many in-class open-book blue-book essay exams with the professor present. In philosophy, it was routine for the professor to tell us that we could bring anything that we thought would help us: our notes, primary sources, commentaries, monographs, journal articles... The problem was that the professor would hit us with novel questions, so our resources had to be pretty general so as to able to cover all eventualities. And if we were going to apply our resources to the questions at hand, we had to already know our way around that material. Why did the professor want us to write the exams in class? Mostly so we couldn't ask anyone else for help, I guess. Being able to incorporate ideas from the literature was part of what we were expected to do, but having somebody else do it for us was over the line. It's interesting that we students all knew that the more material the professor let us bring, the more difficult the exam was going to be. We feared the open book exams. When our professors told us that we could bring anything that we wanted, it was as if he was telling us: "You're doomed, you poor devils".
Wow! Thanks to all who replied to my proctor questions. You've shed some light on the scene and now I understand. Thanks again!!
Yes. I've had the same experience. There's one other factor involved (I reference my own experience with my first exam of this sort) The more material you bring to the exam, the more material you are tempted to check during your writing period. The more you are reading your notes the less you are writing. Since it is your writing that is subject to examination, you may actually find yourself losing points by bringing more materials to your exam. Jack
