D.K.Taylor@open.ac.uk
Thu, 5 Nov 1998 20:08:33 +0100
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 20:08:33 +0100 From: D.K.Taylor@open.ac.uk Subject: RE: [ifets] Distance credits and cheating
Jamie Love wrote:
The Open University (where I am now a student) uses "we trust you
methods" (home tests and projects) plus a single "sitted exam".
That
takes the pressure off the students (a bit) but it also means that
the
way the grades are sliced between "sitted" and "nonsitted" scores
makes for an interesting mix. Going into my sitted exam I had
enough
points accumulated from my "home assessments" that I needed only
30%
to pass!
I'm not sure what course you are studying Jamie, but I think that there
is a misunderstanding of the assessment strategy. As in my previous
message I would emphasize that the continuous assessment scores do NOT
counteract the examination score. You have to pass both separately in
order to achieve an overall pass. If you want some clarification of the
assessment strategy of your course contact me at the address below.
Naturally that would have sent off alarm bells at the Open
University ("Why did he get a 30% on the final exam but was pulling
80's and 90's from the home assessments? Hmm.") Whether the
University
would have had the courage to really question such a disparity is
arguable.
Such a large difference would be flagged up to the Award Board, but
substantial differences are not uncommon between scores for assignments
where students can use all manner of reference materials and have time
to structure and complete the work as they wish, and the work produced
in a pressurised examination environment. Much depends on the person,
their particular circumstances, way of working, abilities and special
circumstances on the day!
The Open University "homework" is very specific to the course and
takes a great deal of time to complete. (I put about 8 hours into
each
of my 4 home tests for a single course.) I would have had to hire a
"ringer" (in this case a computer science graduate) to do the work
for
me and it would have cost me a fortune! Great disincemtive unless
you
have lots of money.
The OU regards Tutor Marked Assignments (TMAs) as an important teaching
tool as well as an assessment tool. The learning process which occurs
during the writing of assignments and the feedback provided by tutors on
TMAs are considered to be extremely important elements of the teaching
process.
Ultimately, I think distance learning programs (delivered by the
internet, or snailmail, etc.) will have to arrange that their
student's go to a testing center (school) and sit the exam(s) in
person.
I think that this is true for robust and credible assessment, although
there is some experimentation going on with setting up a system for
releasing an examination paper to students on-line at a given time and
then the system saving the work and preventing any further work being
done at the end of the examination period. This system is not currently
in use, and has many problems to overcome (e.g. credible invigilation,
cut & pasting in work done previously etc) before it could be.
Regards,
Dean Taylor
(in personal capacity)
d.k.taylor@open.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1908 655518
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