John Bear introduces Henrik Fyrst Kristensen of Knightsbridge University

I'm with Prof. Kennedy here. It's fine to base some, even most, of a course grade on homework. But if there is no proctored exam, how do you know that the student who enrolled in the course is the person who did the homework? If there is a proctored exam, and the student does badly, at least you have cause to be suspicious of the homework.

I wish Prof. Kennedy would make some response to my earlier message, though.

 

Once more with feeling

Ike

I am not questioning on-campus continuous assessment systems (though I have my doubts about class participation suiting everybody ...). I am not questioning the ethics of US campus exam regimes, nor am I asserting that tough exam regimes solve all problems.

What I am asserting is that "the total score ... apportioned to assignments, term papers, tests, quizzes, class participation, etc, while the remaining 40% may be shared by mid-term and final exams", may be suitable for where faculty have close contact with on-campus students, but it has serious deficiencies when exported to a DL off-campus education service. Could you and Tom focus on that point for a moment?

It has nothing to do with US v UK campus exam systems. It is on-campus v DL exam systems that are threatened by such naive transfers. However, even on-campus exam regimes of the type you mention are experiencing widespread fraud in both the US and the UK. The illusion that the educated segment are above cheating is acceptable when it is less the one tenth of one percent who are caught, but when it reaches 80 per cent plus in the exams of some of our Schools (that we know about), something is seriously amiss. In other places, assignments, project papers and essay topics are openly sold on the Internet.

This suggests that DL requires not a transfer of the high risk assessment methods suitable to a quiet, respectable college or university in the US or UK with candidates above reproach, but a return to tough exam regimes, such as exams only under independent invigilation (not 'dial a proctor' or proctorless honour systems) to minimise potentials for fraud, though we can never eliminate it. If we can agree on that as the goal, DL may have a future on a global scale. Otherwise it may not. OK?

 

"People" refers to me specifically. 'Cautious' is perfectly justified, don't you think? You are probably right about 'Sanctimonious'.

But whether you like it or not, I think my point was correct. I've made any number of posts about non-accredited schools in which I opined that absent the expected forms of outside verification, these schools have an added responsibility to demonstrate their own credibility in some alternative way.

That's the attitude that I take towards Knightsbridge. My point is that despite its owner being charming and intelligent, and depite John Bear liking him, he's still got to make his school's case and that he shouldn't get a free-pass.

My use of the word 'flame' was entirely justified by your words.

I am less worried about the "Henrik Fyrst Kristensens" of the world than I am about the fully accredited universities around the world that are debasing the currency of sound, credible and properly attested education, many of which some of our esteemd co-contributors to this Board have passed through, or are passing through, en route to academic credibility.

I refer to the dumbing down on academic standards, or the diluting of the value of the attestation of fitness implied in an accredited university degree and the apparent indfference to this process now rampant, apparently, and tolerated by members of degreeinfo...

An enquiry here for an accredited university that allows unproctored (in UK speak: uninvigilated) exams far from attracting concerns... is followed by helpful advice from Members and Senior Members (!) as to where to avoid the elementary precautions against academic fraud...

Until these issues are treated seriously, I cannot see why others of Henrik Fyrst Kristensen's ilk do not join the Board - they are only a little way ahead of where some of you seem to be drifting...

Those are insults, pure and simple, crude (but effective) attempts at provocation. They may or may not represent your more considered viewpoint, but I object to them regardless.

 

Re: Once more with feeling

Obviously there are some aspects of DL that need improvements to increase the creditability and respectability of DL degrees. One of the aspects is assessment method. I agree that students should not have any say in selecting their proctors. This responsibility should fall squarely on the shoulders of the institutions that are administering the exams. Yes, I like exams and I have taken more than seventy examinations (most of them were IT certification exams) at Sylvan centers. I still wonder why DL schools are not using these centers. I have to reiterate that exams should be complemented with high-quality written term papers, assignments, projects, etc, even in DL programs because exams alone may not determine that knowledge has been imparted.
I am not in any way suggesting that DL schools that do not dish out tough exams are perpetrating academic fraud because they are not. The methods used by DL providers to assess students may be flawed but they cannot be described as scams. They are deficiencies that need to be fixed. “Academic fraud” is a wrong word to use to describe the predicament. DL schools that base their assessments on exams alone are not immune to this imbroglio. They need to improve their delivery/assessment methods especially in their MBA programs that may call for strong interaction among students in the same program to cross-pollinate ideas.

 

Students can still cheat in proctored exams. Can't they?

 

Leaving aside the tendency by a few posters (no, no, calm down, not you, of course not dear, shame, here's a hankie, blow) to applaud a two-headed pig or any other piece of weirdness as long as it's accredited, treating RA as if it were the Tetragrammaton condensed for easy reading, the ol' nomenclature kook inquires of Mr Kristensen: why use such an English-sounding name for a Danish school? The inconcinnity harms credibility, at least on the surface.

 

Ike is exactly right. One of the weaknesses of "high stakes" testing (whether it is in a UK university or a U.S. K-12 school) is that it puts inordinate pressure on students taking the exam to pass the test - any way they can.

The result? In Michigan we've seen teachers leave paragraphs on the board (that just happened to answer a test question) while students take standardized tests. Why? Teachers and students are under pressure to improve scores - any way they can.

As for Professor Kennedy and EBS - I have no knowledge of any cheating going on in their exams. But it would certainly seem that students might be motivated to try to cheat. Whether by imposture, cell phone scams, etc. students that need only to pass a test to earn a degree may well try to cheat.

I'm not against proctored exams - frankly, I'm strongly in favor. Unlike some of my peers I administer exams in every class. I don't believe that "final projects" are a substitute for a final exam. But exams aren't the only way to evaluate student learning.

Regards - Andy

 

Not necessarily, some students are not good test-takers and do not fair well under sudden pressure and time restraints, but instead excel in applying knowledge through other avenues (real life situations, research projects, reports, class participation, outdoor activities, take home tests, etc).

Its all relative. The most effective use of proctored exams depends greatly on the level and field of study, class size, and coursework vs. research-oriented classes. For example, proctored exams are necessary for classes in the hard sciences (and these classes should not/and are not taken through DL). OTOH, classes in English literature or in the fine arts do not need to rely too much on them.

I knew of quite a number of students majoring in American Studies. Most of their classes had NO exams whatsoever, and this program is supposed to be one of the best. However, their curricula is quite demanding and rigorous. They were required to read over 2-3 books a week for a total of over 25 books and make a cumulative project about them for the entire course (no, I'm not kidding). Thus, classes that do not use exams are not necessarily easier. Quite often, they require more intensive work to compensate for this. And it does not give good test-takers students who don't open a book any unfair advantages.


Proctored tests are not necessarily the most reliable way of measuring knowledge and wisdom.
They are quite good at measuring recently acquired crammed information from which 80-90% is quickly forgotten a week after the final. IOW, the knowledge measured is mostly short-term. This is one of the reasons why they usually don't count more than 25% of the total score (both mid and final)in most classes. Now, like another poster stated, this percentage can greatly vary depending on the field of study, school or professor. My field is psychology.

Plus, research shows that overuse of proctored exams decrease motivation and incentiveness in students. The focus of the student instead is in getting over with the test and getting a good grade, rather than in acquiring something meaningful out of the course.

The level of professor-student trust tends to increase in grad and doctoral programs.
I've been in situations where professors leave a class full of students taking a comprehensive test (I was one of the test takers). In undergrad classes you need to make sure your students have learned/memorized the material. In grad, it is taken that the student has already memorized the basic contents, so the goal is to measure the way the student applies what he/she has learned, and how to research for it. Essay tests can address some of this, but only superficially. There is just not enough time.


My own experience at my b/m alma mater is that some grad classes required proctored essay exams that were time consuming but relatively easy (fair and no tricky questions).
Other classes based what you learned more on how well you apply it in long ambitious projects, presentations and lengthy take home exams. Heavily classes that devote almost exclusively on research and understanding of concepts are examples of this. Most of my background is in psychology so I cannot relate to all of you business majors and grad students.

As for dl schools, I think that the use of proctored exams depends on the school and disciplines offered. Some dl schools are heavy research based, to my surprise, and use very rigorous comprehensive examinations that include oral presentations (Capella), others use proctored exams after each course (DeVry), some doctoral programs are research oriented exclusively and do not require any coursework (in particular, many b/m British universities). Some other dl schools exclusively prepare students well for state examinations and licensure while using the Socratic method.


In sum, proctored exams are not perfect. Are they needed? Hell, yeah, but their use/necessity is relative to the class and discipline you are teaching.

-S

 

Sulla:

You wrote:

"Proctored tests are not necessarily the most reliable way of measuring knowledge and wisdom."

It seems to have escaped your notice but I am not arguing for proctored exams in DL programmes because they are "the most reliable way of measuring knowledge and wisdom." (Another discussion entirely). I am asserting that proctored exams are the least likely to lead to widespread uncertainty as to the provenance of the answer scripts.

Our incidence of people caught cheating is of considerably less than one tenth of one percent (a norm sometimes mentioned as the threshold of a serious problem). There is a big gap between that as a norm for a campus based exam and a recent score of 80 per cent of a campus cohort found to have cheated in their exams by continuous assessments via unauthorised and plagiarised Internet material. It would require a highly dopy invigilator to miss the fact that 80 per cent of an examination class were cheating on that scale (certainly by all known methods of class examination cheating that most experienced faculty know about).

The threat to the integrity of DL is serious. It would help if we stopped confusing the dreamy campus world with the reality of DL as it is practised across the globe, including outside the USA campuses.

 

As of today the gentleman from Knightsbridge tells me he is still unable to post messages here, much as he would like to.

 

Perhaps this line is the inspiration for a "school" in Denmark having such an English name:

"Your old man took her diamonds and tiaras by the score
Now she gets her kicks in Stepney
Not in Knightsbridge anymore
So don't play with me, 'cause you're playing with fire"

-The Rolling Stones


Note: Knightsbridge is a very affluent neighborhood in the London area. Stepney is working class area.

Perhaps Mr. Kristensen is just looking for "diamonds and tiaras by the score."

 

Degrees of difference!

Mark

Apologies for not replying but when I looked back I noted you had posted two messages not one. I thought your message was only to the Knightsbridge fellow.

[email protected] wrote:

"Do you think it's the students' responsibility to refuse to enroll in accredited courses that don't have proctored exams?"

I think it is incumbent on all of us to advise students not to enrol in institutions that do not have tough exam regimes, though that of course puts an onerous burden on students whose short term interest is to qualify with the least, not the most, effort. It was ever thus. That's like suggesting it is solely the individual's responsibility to avoid injesting harmful substances - it is also the community's responsibility to make it unprofitable for suppliers to do so.

"I think it's professors who should lobby their representatives on the accrediting bodies not to renew the accreditation of schools with inadequate requirements for proctoring."

Link that to "dumbing down" of syllabi, soft exam regimes and "past life experiences" and I agree. We could start by critiqueing here these regimes in "accredited" schools too and argue against their transfer to DL where they are not appropriate. Faculty cannot leave messages on a blackboard in DL because there are no blackboards to look at; they cannot drop 'hints' of an exam's content in a lecture because there are no lectures in DL, and in a properly run DL exam regime, home faculty do not know, or have access, to the several pre-prepared exams, one of which may be used in the forthcoming exam Diet.

"One difference is that it is a student's responsibility not to enroll in a degree mill. So as far as advising students goes, I think our knives are in the right place."

It is a community's responsibility not be silent about degree mills.
Our 'knives are in the right place' mostly, but encouragement from contributors on how to avoid minimally tough exam regimes in favour of softer ones seems to me to contradict our intentions, especially when accompanied by vigorous defence of campus 'trust' between professors and exam candidates, perhaps appropriate on a campus but never in DL.

The difference I allude to seems to be that when well endowed "accredited" institutions do something not much different from a shabby degree mill (degrees awarded without much real independent effort, just an exchange of money) it becomes a "learning experience" in the former but a "con" in the latter. True, there remains a big difference, but it is only one of 'degree' (pun intended).

 

When you talk about soft exam regimes, what sort of specific programs do you have in mind?


Cheers,

 

Re: Degrees of difference!

I think that there are some excellent and valuable programs out there that differ widely from the Heriot-Watt model. I'll continue to suggest them to others whenever I think that's appropriate.

I agree that most models (including H-W's) can be criticized constructively and can be made better. But I think that it's excessive to insist that Degreeinfo denounce all DL universities that differ from one person's preferred methodology. And I think that it's insulting to attempt to link all the other methodologies with "dumbing down", weak syllabi and the like.

Why are you trying to associate methodologies that differ from Heriot-Watt's with "dumbing down"? And what precisely do you mean by "past life experiences". Most universities have some mechanism for assessing prior learning. That's well established and quite justifiable. If you are referring instead to those 'send in a resume, get a degree' things, no accredited universities do that.

Why must there be no blackboards (or blackboard equivalents) and no lectures in DL? Not all DL programs have eliminated their faculty, and those faculty have a variety of ways of communicating with their students.

There you go again, subtly moving from your rather extreme views on "exam regimes" to criticism of "degrees awarded without much real effort, just an exchange of money". That's a leap that's going to need some more argument.

Why don't ongoing class assignments, projects and participation, as well as on-line exams and assigned papers involve "real effort"?

 

BillDayson wrote:

> Why don't ongoing class assignments, projects and
> participation, as well as on-line exams and assigned papers
> involve "real effort"?

They DO.

But, in the case of online "ongoing class assignments, projects and participation", how do you know who is making this effort?

 

Where's Henrik?

 

Maybe he's afraid of us?

 

Bill

It is more helpful to criticise the exam regime, where open to DL fraud on a large scale, than to finger named institutions, of which there are too many in existence, and which few of us have the resources to track whatever they are doing. Apart from this practical constraint, there is also a legal one.

The point was well put by Mark: how do you know (assuming that you were running a University) that the off campus work of your students had been undertaken by the students in whose name it is submitted? Answer this against the background of the serial reports now appearing in the education press - and sometimes in the general media - of large scale plagiarism - fraud by any other name - in respect of campus universities.

I widened this problem out by noting its roots in "continuous assessment" practices that start out to give students multiple forms of assessment at the expence of tough exam regimes - down to only 25 per cent (and falling?) - at campus universities. Tom has suggested this is a 'different' system in the US to the UK, as if that made it OK to practice. DL is global not location specific.

Now, set that argument aside, and think through what such regimes mean in DL. Set it against your suggestion that if the final exams are 'too tough', and, er, final, this will encourage cheating, due to stress, pressure and such like. Plausible, yet flawed.

Softer 'continuous assessment' regimes are highly prone to the temptation to cheat and submit work that is not their own from various sources. The incidence of cheating in final exam regimes is fairly constant (at under one tenth of one per cent), yet cheating in off campus, own work, open book, access to the Internet, borrowing a senior student's essay, etc., the incidence of cheating is not one tenth, or even one percent, or near it. In a recent case it reached 80 (eighty) per cent!

It would seem that across the world there is another more plausible hypothesis to yours, namely that the softer the exam regime (the less the alleged 'pressure' and 'stress'), the greater the incidence of cheating.

Take direct campus contact away, as in DL, and the opportunity to cheat is absolute. Contact with campus faculty does not reduce it significantly - at 80 per cent cheating rates on campus with direct faculty contact - that leaves 20 per cent influenced by the moral restraints of complying with the system - there is not much that can be improved by fqculty contact within the exam system, is there?

So Bill, set aside all the emotions about 'insults' (which were never intended, nor even thought of - I do not believe my case needs them) and concentrate on the practicalities of running a university as an accredited centre for formally attesting to the fitness of students in subject disciplines. This has nothing to do with the 'campus experience' (often larded with juvenile nostalgia, of professorial 'trust', understandably but not germane to the role of attesting to a person's academic fitness). It is about the credibility of the university system, specifically in my case, to that of DL.

For that purpose, after much thought, I believe DL must return to the exam regime that reduces opportunities for cheating and personation to a minimum, even at the cost of the recognised stress for the examinees. Those that cannot endure the 'stress' (what do we do for those who find interviews 'stressful'?) have plenty of campus options available. DL is under threat from the 'trust' regimes of the campus experience. It is no time to emulate these unsuitable practices in DL.

 

Although I bear only the credentials of a successful DL student, I offer my humble opinion. I took DL courses from several different universities in pursuing my BA and BS degrees. The University of Kansas had a workable solution. I had periodic, graded submissions during the course, but the final could be proctored only at university testing center and my final grade could not exceed that of my final exam. If I had made a C on the final exam and an A on the submitted work, the best I could do was a C. The submissions let me know if I was on the right track and also prepared me for the final. Without the submissions, I could not have passed the final.

For what it's worth...

Kevin

 

Although I bear only the credentials of a successful DL student, I offer my humble opinion. I took DL courses from several different universities in pursuing my BA and BS degrees. The University of Kansas had a workable solution. I had periodic, graded submissions during the course, but the final could be proctored only at university testing center and my final grade could not exceed that of my final exam. If I had made a C on the final exam and an A on the submitted work, the best I could do was a C. The submissions let me know if I was on the right track and also prepared me for the final. Without the submissions, I could not have passed the final.

For what it's worth...

Kevin