[LINK] computers in exams?

[Tom Worthington]

At 07:10 AM 29/07/2008, Sylvano wrote:
>... A future of  public  exams  with  log 
>tables,  slide  rules  and  broadband internet, perhaps? ...

Computers are used for some assessment in computer science courses at 
ANU, these are called "Lab exams". The students compose, type in and 
run short code samples: 
<http://cs.anu.edu.au/Student/comp2100/exam/exam2005.pdf>.

Also I have used Moodle to run an examination for an electronic 
document management short course 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/10/how-to-create-on-line-university_29.html>.

Note that in these cases the student is physically in an examination 
room (a computer lab) and are supervised by staff walking around. 
They are not at home doing the examination over the Internet.

For my eDocuments course the course materials were on a Moodle system 
(in Sydney) which the students accessed in the classroom (in 
Canberra). So I used the same system for the examination: each 
student had the examination questions on the screen in web page and 
typed answers using Moodle's web page editor. There were no paper 
documents. This was an "open book" examination: the students could 
search the Web for answers (and had to for some questions).

The ACS uses some tutorial and assignment assessment over the 
Internet (also using Moodle) for its Computer Professional Education 
Program <http://www.acs.org.au/cpeprogram/>. Students are assessed on 
their online contribution to discussion forums and on more 
traditional written essays (submitted online). The students can be 
anywhere in the world there is an Internet connection (Moodle does 
not make large demands of the link). But because of the difficulty of 
verifying the student actually did the work remotely, some 
traditional examinations on paper in an examination room are also still used.

ps: The combination of the computer and the classroom is  blended 
e-learning 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/07/preparing-for-blended-e-learning.html>.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University