Open Book Exam Courses

[studyhard]

How do locks keep honest people honest ? The way I see it locks are locked to keep dishonest people out of your home ? Locks are locked because of fear, fear someone will take what is yours or fear of being harmed etc.. To me it is just an inconvenience to the honest person to have to lock their doors.

In your replies I see this same fear, in regards to the future worth of your degree.

Personally, I give little thought to such things as I do not want to live my life out of a sense of fear. Nor do I want my life to be dictated by the actions of cheaters or slackers.

I think this response is extremely simplistic. There is nothing wrong with a having a degree of concern that allows you to protect your investments. Maybe locks are a nuisance, but I still lock my house and I'll bet you do too. Fear shouldn't render you helpless, but a little bit of fear is healthy and protects you. I am "afraid" of house fire, therefore I do not leave a pot boiling unattended on my stove. Does that mean I'm sitting around biting my nails and trembling whenever I cook? Of course not. It does mean I pay attention and take basic safety precautions.

I see the same principle here. Although I'm not necessarily advocating SirJake's approach, I think it's important that we keep an eye on these things.

The problem is not that WE are "letting our lives be dictated by the actions of cheaters." The problem is that the "actions of cheaters" may dictate the actions of employers or scholarship awarders. This, in turn, affect us whether we like it or not, whether we ignore our "fear" or not.

[peace123]

"Locks keep honest people honest" is a common adage. Do a Google search if you don't believe me.

To reiterate, I am in FAVOR of locks. I'm saying that people cannot be trusted to the extent that these exams are trusting people. If you're cool with leaving your doors unlocked with valuables present all the time because you believe in the inherent goodness of man or something of that nature, so be it.

It is a common adage, but a poorly worded one in my opinion. It might be clearer if it was :

locks keep dishonest people and those who are honest only when being watched, or not given the chance to be dishonest, etc... honest.

But I can see how that does not flow off the tongue as well.

I do understand your position on locks, and respect your right to have it.

In regards to leaving doors unlocked, as I see it , if someone is going to rob me anyway, why should I also have to deal with the hassle of replacing a broken window or door jam?

I do not live with a fairy tale view of humanity, my opinion is we all have the same 24 hours to make choices in. How we react to the choices made by ourselves and others, is what makes us all different and it is also what forces us to grow.

[motuterry]

Terry,

Thank you for clarifying this point. In my posting, I was speaking of the course exams, not ECE's. Indeed, the security for the ECE's is strong, thumb print, photo, etc...

Thanks Peace. I understood your well written post and just wanted to make sure others knew the quality level of Excelsior exams and courses.

[sirjake]

Terry,

Thank you for clarifying this point. In my posting, I was speaking of the course exams, not ECE's. Indeed, the security for the ECE's is strong, thumb print, photo, etc...

But why do they do this? From your point of view, it seems that they should offer these online with no proctor. Why shouldn't they? What is the fundamental difference?

[TMW2010]

I'd like to weigh in on this from the Excelsior standpoint.

I've complete 3 classes and am currently working on 4 more at this time (yeah, I should have rethought that.. but.. shrug.) 2 classes were 8 week classes, 2 classes were of the CDROM version, and the 3 classes are the full 15 week classes. And as Peace said, there's no proctor involved. BUT...

• The 5 non-CDROM classes all have the weekly dicussions, which are worth 20% of the grade. These discussions require inital posts of 125-250 words, and multiple responses of at least 100 words, all requiring thought, explanation, and citation of sources.
  
• One of the classes I'm taking has modular multiple choice quizzes, that are all timed & open book. And worded so that you wanted to make sure you read the material so you subtle differences between the answers. The Midterm and final for this class will also have 50 multiple choice questions (timed), in additional to 3-5 'short answer' questions that will require 250-500 words each with citation.
  
• The Midterm and final of my other classes consist of anywhere between 6-10 short answer and 2-5 essay questions. My Criminology class final was estimated by the professor to be around 11-13 pages in length when completed . When I turned mine in, it was 27 pages.
  
• One of the classes I'm currently taking has two 'quizzes', one was in Module 2 and the other will be in module 6. The one in module two consisted of 9 short answer questions which required citations (which ended up being an average of 300 words per question for me). I assume the module 6 will be the same.
  
• Each of my classes (both CD-ROM & online) require at least 2 projects consisting of papers that are between 2-10 pages of work each.
  
• All projects, essays, and short answers are checked via TurnItIn to make sure there's no plagiarism and copy/paste of answers from some of these web sites.
  

I think EC has their bases covered...

[peace123]

But why do they do this? From your point of view, it seems that they should offer these online with no proctor. Why shouldn't they? What is the fundamental difference?

I think some assumptions are being made here. Please tell me what you are understanding as "my point of view" in this situation.

From a course versus ECE exam perspective:

~ With the courses you have a teacher who is grading you over the term of the course work. You are interacting with other students in the course , via discussion board postings, etc. You sign up and complete the course through Excelsior.

~The ECE's you sign up for them through Excelsior but take the exam at a Pearson-Vue center.

In regards to why Excelsior requires such security for ECE and UExcel exams, but does not require proctoring of exam's for their online courses.

If I were to guess it maybe because the courses require interaction between a teacher and student over a period of time. Also I would guess most of the time the people who are taking Excelsior courses are matriculated in one of their degree programs, so they have already obtained personal information on the student and verified their identity.

The ECE's can be taken by anyone, and are administered by another company. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for their security measures.
They may need to have this additional information in their files to comply with accreditation standards (RA, ACE or both).

[rickyjo]

Could a more moderate approach be taken? Perhaps a timed test you have to take within a certain amount of time after starting the course with a biometric verification of identity. I think the SL approach is fairly reasonable if the identity of the test taker is verified. It really takes away from the value of an online course if it is not completely available online. In other words, I'm curios, is proctoring the only way to curtail your concern?

BTW: Nice job causing a stir ^_^

[motuterry]

This might ruffle some feathers. I'm OK with that. Bring it.

The recent post about Penn Foster courses that fulfill TESC requirements really bothers me. My understanding is that these courses have no required proctored exams. They are all open-book exam courses. If I'm wrong on this, then this only applies to courses that ARE open book exam courses (Straighterline and FEMA, for example).

I think that every single one of us should write ACE, TESC, Excelsior, and COSC and request that they stop accepting *ANY* course that has zero proctored tests. I don't care that ACE "approves" it. Their approval means nothing to me when anyone with half a brain and a bit of honesty knows that this is ridiculous. If they want to be legit, they should *stop* approving them.

The truth is that the integrity of our degrees is at stake. In the real world, people know that students cannot be trusted. Accepting these credits flies in the face of that.

For example: I just finished a Straighterline course earlier this week. What a joke. Every quiz's answers were freely available in the textbook's resources online and many of the exam questions (if not all--I didn't check since I'm not interested in cheating) were available via a Google search from abused services like Cramster or Yahoo Answers. The above is exactly why these courses should not be allowed to count for "real" college credit.

This isn't counting the other collusion that does go on. You know, like a student on this forum sending me a message asking me if I would give him copies of my exams from a course I just took for one that he just took since we were soon to be taking the other's course--yes, that happened. No, I didn't go along with it. (The other member was IgnazSemmelweis. I have zero problem with ratting out cheaters. Again, bring it.)

Could you learn from these courses? Sure. Of course you could. That isn't the point. You can learn the information that you need to know to do virtually *ANYTHING* without a college course. Name one thing that you can't learn outside of a college classroom. Seriously. The point is that it's supposed to be a good faith verification that you've achieved some level of understanding. You simply are not getting that with open-book exams and time alone with an internet connection.

CLEP credit is looked upon with disdain by some. I understand that, but it is still a proctored exam. It's a good faith effort to limit cheating and make sure that a student actually knows a good portion of the material covered. Even if it's short-term memory, you still *must* know the information at some point. That simply is not the case with a course whose testing is made up of nothing but open-book exams.

We can't keep this a secret. Eventually, our degrees will just start being worth less (if not worthless). It doesn't take much. When people find out that a good portion of a degree can essentially be faked, it lowers its esteem in the public eye. We will start seeing requirements for positions or higher degrees that explicitly forbid "our" schools. I've already seen it once for one school: Excelsior nursing grads are not allowed in Illinois due to a type of testing they do. I could see the same happening for other applications: professional designation requirements (CPA, CFP, etc.), grad education (law school, med, etc), and even businesses. There is a reason why national accreditation isn't widely respected; I think that this is it, or at least a large part of it.

They won't care that you personally didn't cheat, did learn, etc. They'll care that you had ample opportunity to do so.

Write these schools. Express concern. We need to do something about this asap.

It’s interesting to see how defensive and offended we become when we feel our online degrees are questioned.

Many years ago, I started out at an Ivy League school. Credit earned from this establishment is readily accepted anywhere. Several of my classmates were members of the football team. Oddly, most never attended class. One in particular later joined the NFL and is a well known national celebrity. I noted that he finished his degree while I quit in disgust during my first semester.

Harvard readily accepts transfer students from this university. Is Harvard diminished by this? Should Harvard degree holders feel obligated to defend themselves and are their degrees in jeopardy of being deemed “worthless”?

My point is this- if you feel an institution is taking shortcuts, reported them to the ACE. The ACE vigorously ferrets out scammers and will certainly investigate. If Penn Foster or Straighterline are not following acceptable practices, report them. As students, we have no obligation to police cheaters and should not suffer consequences from those who scam the system, whether this injury is from individuals or institutions. Those of us who have worked hard to EARN our degrees should not feel diminished by the acts of others.

I could have resumed my education anywhere I wanted. I chose Excelsior because I believed they offered a quality education. I’m proud of my accomplishments and pleased to continue with the college for my graduate studies. Online education is the future. Almost every university offers an online program and that approach will continue to expand.

Sirjake is correct at being outraged at cheaters. He would be hard pressed to find anyone on this forum not equally offended. In my view, the best response is for him is to report his concerns to the ACE rather than suggest anyone here should feel threatened or alarmed their hard work will be made “worthless.”

I believe Sirjake’s “bring it” comments were directed at those who would cheat the system and attempt to steal rather than earn. (If I am wrong here Sirjake, please correct me.)

[Sunshine]

For example: I just finished a Straighterline course earlier this week. What a joke. Every quiz's answers were freely available in the textbook's resources online and many of the exam questions (if not all--I didn't check since I'm not interested in cheating) were available via a Google search from abused services like Cramster or Yahoo Answers. The above is exactly why these courses should not be allowed to count for "real" college credit.

Will you be submitting your Straighterline transcript for credit?

[skyfall123]

The recent post about Penn Foster courses that fulfill TESC requirements really bothers me. My understanding is that these courses have no required proctored exams. They are all open-book exam courses. If I'm wrong on this, then this only applies to courses that ARE open book exam courses (Straighterline and FEMA, for example).

I think that every single one of us should write ACE, TESC, Excelsior, and COSC and request that they stop accepting *ANY* course that has zero proctored tests. I don't care that ACE "approves" it. Their approval means nothing to me when anyone with half a brain and a bit of honesty knows that this is ridiculous. If they want to be legit, they should *stop* approving them.

The truth is that the integrity of our degrees is at stake. In the real world, people know that students cannot be trusted. Accepting these credits flies in the face of that.

When you earned your TESC BA Liberal Studies did you take any unproctored FEMA exams and apply them to your degree as free electives ?