[LINK] Exam Software

[Tom Worthington]

On 23/5/20 4:38 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote:

> 'You’re being watched ... By Natassia Chrysanthos  May 22, 2020
> https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/you-re-being-watched-and-recorded-every-breath-students-unsettled-by-exam-software-20200519-p54ucb.html

Last week I tried a demo exam with one of the leading online
exams products. While just a practice, this brought back a tinge of the
terrors I suffered as a student with assessment.

As an educator, I would not use such a system to provide an online 
version of a paper based hours long examination. Such examinations are 
not a good way to assess the knowledge, and even less so for assessing 
skills, needed for real world tasks.

Students were already at risk of mental illness and self harm before 
COVID-19 and they are now at higher risk. Long high stakes online tests 
are an unacceptable risk to student health and safety.

Short low stakes tests might be used as a small part of assessment, but 
there are better, safer, ways to carry out the majority of assessment. 
https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/05/dont-replace-long-paper-examinations.html


-- 
Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au 
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Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University 
https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington