Cheating the system

Troy University's test webcams aren't enough to stop determined cheaters, says Kevin Alexander

By: Kevin Alexander

Posted: 6/27/07

My name is Kevin, and I'm a cheater. I won't specify any classes or rat out any accomplices, but I cheated in high school and I've cheated in college. Cheating is a near-irresistible force.

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.

If Troy allows students to sell back the cameras at full price, then the situation is more reasonable, but most could use the $125 to fund more pressing concerns, like hunger.

Whenever an institution needs to resort to breaching privacy to get something done, it usually means that institution isn't thinking hard enough to overcome a problem. A webcam may not be a grievous rejection of privacy, but it opens an uneasy door that could be used to justify further intrusions.

A student's home is a symbolic sanctuary, and there is just something wrong about forcing someone to open it up for others to view when another solution could be had.

If professors are really concerned about cheating, then they should lean heavily on writing assignments or group activities. Force the students to attend a testing location - if this is not possible (for instance, students in the military), make them mail in a hard copy with a supervisor's, or superior officer's signature and contact information. Educators can monitor how much time each student spends on each question - institute a time limit for each problem so students don't have time to flip through a textbook or ask a friend.

Above all else, though, public education needs to recognize the fact that mankind just doesn't have the technology to outwit a cheater without trampling privacy rights. Cheaters have been getting around the system for years. An overpriced tech-toy isn't going to stop us lying scum from continuing to do it in the future.