proctored exams

The post above mine talked about data on grade inflation. I asked what the data would be for CCU. Dennis' answer is really alarming!

(part of critical thinking involves reading things in context...)

 

maybe you want to read it again - the question just above the possible answers.

 

part of critical is staying on topic.

 

The correct question is "Are papers a method of examination?"

The correct answer is "duh"

 

Thanks Gus

From what you reveal I will stop equating invigilated exams with proctored exams. The critical difference is in allowing instructors or members of faculty to administer them under the proctoring system.

That is not allowed under invigilation (it used to be common in the UK but was discouraged and then prohibited under Quality Assurance from the middle 1980s). The administrator must be 'independent' of faculty and the rules must prohibit faculty entering the examination room ('to clear up any "ambiguities" in the exam questions', etc., which easily turns into 'hint' dropping and, anyway is not consistent for each centre). The invigilator is in total charge and opens the exam packet for distributing the exams in front of the candidates and does not allow anybody to see the paper except the candidates.

This last has led to some 'difficult' moments with some new Asian centres until they came across the determined invigilators employed by the British Council.

I agree, open book assignments are not examinations and should not count towards a final grade. I have received applications from students for marks for 'attendance', for 'participation' in class and '10 per cent to beused to pass a failing paper'! Off site and out of sight is not an examination.

I make an exception - as has been pointed out to me before in degreeinfo - for software exams that cannot be written in 3 hours.
PhDs are a different test to written exams, which tend to be taken by hundredsof thousands of candidates several times a year. An original thesis is taken by a few hundred once in three years and its supervision assures it provenance, with few examples of plagiarism (and is bound to be revealed in the nature of scholarly research).

 

I'm a big fan of "open book" exams; I give them all the time. I feel that life is "open book," and exams should reflect that. Of course, the exam questions need to be written with some depth, going after far more than cognition.

Examinations should not be memory contests. They should reflect the students' abilities to sytheisize and apply the knowledge gained in their course(s). Let's take statistics as an example. If I ask the student to recognize the Greek symbol for population mean, an open book exam fails to adequately test it. (The student could easily look it up, testing his/her ability to use a textbook, not his/her knowledge about statistics.) But does that really test the desired learning outcomes? Rather, I'll write scenarios requiring the students to recognize the business problem, decide the appropriate statistical process, and then apply it. This means the student will need to look up the relevant formula, use the correct statistical table(s), and calculate the answer using an electronic calculator. Now, this could be done with "open notes," where students are allowed to have copies of statisitical tables and formulae, or "open book," which would also include use of the textbook. I let them have anything except a computer with an internet connection. Who cares? Faced with the exact same problem on their jobs, wouldn't they have all of these available? The only difference is, I don't give them enough time to make up for lost learning--too many questions with not enough time (unless they're very well-versed in the subject matter; then they barely have enough time).

Superficial, multiple-choice tests measuring cognition: closed book. Realistic problems requiring thinking and applying their learning: open book.

Supervised or not? Supervised, of course. "Take home" exams, which are not timed, controlled, or supervised, are not effective: no control as to who's knowledge you're measuring. If you're going to do that, assign a paper and/or oral presentation instead.

That's why CCU's "open book," multiple choice exams are/were a joke. Those aren't tests, they're learning exercises.

 

Although you chose to rewrite the question to better suit your needs, Dennis, you might want to rethink your answer. Perhaps it would be best if the question were asked in a format with which you are much more familiar and comfortable...

• Do papers count as exams?
  
  a. No, they are simply another, different, form of assesment.
  
  b. Yes, but nobody in academia calls them that for double super secret reasons.
  
  c. Yes, but only if you can roll one using a single sheet, one-handed, while driving.
  
  d. duh

Take as much time as you like, consult any text or online source you feel like, and fear not, there's no need for supervision of any kind (you can even ask a friend to help you).

 

It is interesting that R/A programs without proctored examination are okay while others are not.

Did Union have proctored exams in your program?? Another question could be - did union have any courses in Your program??

 

If they don't I've taken some courses from some really good schools without examination.

If there is nothing left to sustain your arguments you have to option to quit posting.

 

Precisely! However, so what? What is your point? Examinations are not the only means of assesment. I'm fairly certain that some reputable schools grant entire degrees without a single examination.

What argument, specifically, are you attemtping to refute with such a comment? Do you know?

 

Just a note (so far in the CSUDH HUX program, my wife has not taken any exams, but she has written many thousands of words. in papers.

 

The CSUDH HUX program is just one of the ones I was thinking of, Mike. There are many others.

 

Few too many beers there, Mike?

 

Whaddya want, Bruce? Cuneiform on clay tablets? (Try e-mailing them suckers--makes an awful noise flyin thru cyberspace and tends to bust the monitor screen on the receiving end).

 

There is no indication (from your "survey," at least) that R/A programs without proctored exams are not okay with anyone. Your survey just asked whether or not the respondents' programs had them.

Regarding Union, are you really that uninformed regarding that program?

All Union learners have courses, and so did I.

 

How many credits were earned by Union coursework? And how many credits did you obtain by others means, not including the dissertation? Ignorant but curious.

 

Do real schools actually award credits for the dissertation? I had always assumed that was typically a degree mill type tactic? Ignorant but curious.

 

I believe that I went through my entire Masters degree program without taking an exam. All the assessments were "papers" of one sort or another.
Jack

 

In the Industrial Engineering program at Colorado State, up to 12 credits of the total can be earned during the research phase. This is not for the dissertation, but the research and writting of the dissertation (minor technical difference). This is fairly common.

 

I found (this) notorious California degree mill that grants its unwary customers up to 12 units each semester (it's repeatable) for dissertation research.

Scroll down to Math 295 Individual Research (1-12)

I chose mathematics because this ridiculous little mill's graduate course descriptions just sound so outrageously exotic to my layman's ear. I mean ramification theory, cyclotomic fields, zeta-functions, transcendental numbers, pseudo-convexity and plurisubharmonicity.

Bwa ha ha ha! Eat your hearts out, theologians.