Open Book Exam Courses

[sirjake]

I attended B&M schools from '88-'92. (UF and Holy Cross.) I can right now think of 5 different classes I had that used "open-book" testing.* There may have been more that I'm simply not remembering at the moment.

I'm not against open-book exams as a whole. I'm against this online sort.

We recently saw a story in the news about a group of people getting arrested in California (I believe) because of a scam they ran where people paid other people to show up to proctored exams on campus and take their tests for them. Does this mean cheating is too easy and every student who ever took a proctored exam should have his credentials invalidated? Cheaters are everywhere. If you want to go on a crusade against them, have at. Just make sure they are actually cheating.

Right, but they were caught. It's much more difficult to get away with this than in the privacy of your home with no one looking over your shoulder. There is in the above case at least the pretense of verification (and it obviously worked since they were caught). I'm not asking for perfection; I'm asking for a good faith effort. I just don't see it.

I'm saying that men should not be trusted to this level when their own interests are at stake. It's the same reason we have locks on doors. Are locks going to prevent *every* intrusion? Of course not. But they help keep honest people honest. The same goes with precautions and verifications in education. I'm saying that these courses lack such precautions and verifications.

I'm going to assume by the way you felt it necessary to say, "Bring it!" more than once, OP, that you are simply spoiling for a fight, but while you may have a valid concern, your nuclear solution to it is over-the-top and rather insulting to many people here who are working extremely hard. You are, in essence, saying you want us all to write gosh-knows-who and demand that many people lose their credentials and are stripped of their degrees because they MIGHT have cheated or they MAY not have learned enough to satisfy YOU.

Reread my original post. Did I anywhere state that I think that people should have their degrees stripped ex post facto? Nope. I want it changed for the going forward. I want to *protect* those who are working hard. Will this protect some slackers as well? Sure, of course. But I want those who work hard to actually reap the benefits of their hard work. If they work hard and get their degrees, I don't want the public to view it virtually the same as a degree mill degree.

You may want to rethink that stance after you've calmed down some.

The "bring it" (I didn't have an exclamation point) may have been slightly over the top. I thought it was justified. I think it's righteous anger and not a general bellicose spirit. I'm ready to take on *cheaters* and/or slackers who want the lowest possible standard. It wasn't directed toward hard-working students. Again, I want to protect the integrity of their degrees by weeding out these sources of credit that have little to no verification and are going to devalue their hard work. If you're working hard on your degree and take some of these courses, behave ethically and pass, then God bless you. But you're being naive if you think that's going to be the standard or the way the general public will look at things.

*One exam in particular? Was on the ENTIRE Bible. A 90-minute exam on the Bible, asking extremely detailed questions. More than half the class failed. If you didn't know the Bible quite well, it didn't matter that you were able to consult it. There simply wasn't enough time to spend per question to pass it without having done extensive studying beforehand. You are assuming all open-book tests are "too easy" and therefore invalid or worthless. You have no way to truly determine if that is true. As the previous poster stated, I had several open-book tests that were much more difficult than the non-open book ones.

I am not assuming that. I'm assuming that *these* courses that lack proper verification are made up of easy to fake exams that encompass the entirety of your grade should be stopped. I'm not even saying that they're easy. I had to work hard on the exams above because I won't cheat. I'm saying that they lack verification of hard work. The exam you listed above sounds nothing of the sort, so of course I would have no problem with that.

[sirjake]

None of the (five) courses I took through Excelsior had proctored exams. I think your proposition is pointless with regards to Excelsior, unless they are willing to change how they administer their own exams.

Really? Wow. I am surprised. That's the strongest rejoinder I've heard. But in my opinion, it just potentially devalues Excelsior. As someone looking for a second degree from one of the big three, I'll definitely look into and verify that before I take the plunge. I would encourage others to do so as well.

I have no problem with courses that are all open book exams. In this day and age, the ability to know how and where to locate information is a major skill. Often this is as important as actually learning the material.

But this obviously should not completely replace actually knowing certain materials. If it were, companies and colleges could easily test for this ability and not worry about tests. The predominance of courses that require proctored exams from respected colleges argues against this.

In regards to Straighterline and Aleks, both have non-proctored exams:
I took Accounting 1 through Straighterline , to replace an accounting course from over 20 years ago. I had 20 other credits in accounting (many at the upper level) as well as years of work experience, and I still only scored a B in their course. Just because their exams are open book does not mean they are easy.

I'm not saying that these exams are *easy*. I'm saying that they are potentially easy to fake. I agree, the accounting courses weren't easy--if you actually did the work. But the answers for at least a very large number of questions were right there for the taking. It should not be that way. Slackers and cheaters should not have it that easy (to fake or cheat).

With Aleks, I took Intro Stat's to replace a lower level stats course, and let me tell you , this was a rigorous course. There were times I just wanted to give up as it seemed like I was never going to reach a 70% assessment.

I didn't address Aleks because I don't know enough about it to speak. I thought that they had some sort of adaptive thing that made it more difficult for one to cheat. Regardless, it doesn't change the thrust of what I'm saying. If they are exams that can be easily cheated on or faked, I don't like them and don't think that you should get college credit for them going forward.

Times are changing, mostly due to the ease of availability of information. Gone are the days of having to go to the library, find information in card catalogs, etc... Most schools are now requiring Information Lit courses because the way we obtain information has changed. So it is not surprising to me that the way we test would change also.

Sure, times do change, but actual knowledge of the subject is still required. Otherwise, why bother with the course at all? All we would all need is a course in information literacy or Googling. See my comment about about the predominance of courses that require proctored exams.

If ACE ,the partner colleges, or the college accepting the courses for transfer, have no objection to the open book aspect, then it is not cheating.

Well, no, it's not necessarily cheating, but neither is it automatically legitimate. I'm not accusing anyone who ever took a course through these sources of cheating. I'm saying that there is not a good faith effort to prevent cheating and make sure that the students actually know anything of the subject.

In regards to cheating, you will never be able to stop cheating, even with requiring proctored exams. Some people will cheat regardless of where, when or how you test them on the material.

See my note above about locks. Note the references to "good faith" in my first post.

If anyone has a concern with a degree from one of the Big 3 being worthless in the future, then it would probably be best they not get a degree from one of them.

I've already got the degree. Honestly, this is making me rethink getting my second through TESC. I don't want a worthless degree. If I wanted that, I would have just paid for a degree mill "degree."

[peace123]

I've already got the degree. Honestly, this is making me rethink getting my second through TESC. I don't want a worthless degree. If I wanted that, I would have just paid for a degree mill "degree."

Considering your apprehension, you might want to get your 2nd degree from a more traditional college.

[sirjake]

Correct, these are pencil and paper proctored, timed exams.

The final exam for each course, the "unit exams" are open-book on computer.

All of my courses except for English Comp (which was all essays), and Art Appreciation had proctored final exams.

Wait, so the final is proctored on a computer and there is one additional pencil and paper proctored exam? So there are essentially two proctored exams per course or am I misunderstanding you?

Also, what percentage of your grade is entailed in this one proctored exam? I'm definitely happy to hear that they have proctored exams, it definitely lends it credibility, but sites like this one Penn Foster Exam Answers - pfExams.com make me even more leery about PFC (and desirous to dig deeper). I found that without even looking for it when trying to determine what type of examination process they have (there was a link on Youtube off of one of the official PFC videos that was advertising this site).

I can't find anything like that for CLEP or DSST exams in a quick search. That seems telling.

[peace123]

I'm saying that men should not be trusted to this level when their own interests are at stake. It's the same reason we have locks on doors. Are locks going to prevent *every* intrusion? Of course not. But they help keep honest people honest. The same goes with precautions and verifications in education. I'm saying that these courses lack such precautions and verifications.

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.

[BrandeX]

Wait, so the final is proctored on a computer and there is one additional pencil and paper proctored exam? So there are essentially two proctored exams per course or am I misunderstanding you?

Also, what percentage of your grade is entailed in this one proctored exam? I'm definitely happy to hear that they have proctored exams, it definitely lends it credibility, but sites like this one Penn Foster Exam Answers - pfExams.com make me even more leery about PFC (and desirous to dig deeper). I found that without even looking for it when trying to determine what type of examination process they have (there was a link on Youtube off of one of the official PFC videos that was advertising this site).

I can't find anything like that for CLEP or DSST exams in a quick search. That seems telling.

The single final exam for each class is P&P, not online. Unit exams are unproctored and online. Also worth noting, and likely due to this format, they use a steeper grading scale with "F" starting at under 70% (instead of under 60%) and increasing from there.

[skyfall123]

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.

Brilliant.

[sirjake]

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.

"Locks keep honest people honest" is a common adage. Do a Google search if you don't believe me. The point is that a lock cannot possibly stop all intruders. It may stop some, but even a bad crook can usually break down a door to the average home, break a window, etc. The saying means that people aren't always trustworthy, even those who are generally honest. Of course, it's also a deterrent to crime from dishonest folks as well, but the point is that if you are dishonest enough, you can circumvent it.

That's why you have checks and balances in government, accounting, banking, etc. That's why virtually every major respected school tests and grades its students.

Also, as for the fear aspect: are the above banks operating out of fear? Our Founding Fathers who instituted the checks? Schools that try to prevent cheating? If so, I feel like I'm in good company. If it is fear, it's not misplaced. I would more term it "concern." I'm not going to go commit suicide if my degree is suddenly worthless. But I do want to protect my investment and make wise decisions about future investments. That's just smart, if you ask 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.

And I'm saying that good folks, honest folks, should want these "locks." Proctors, standards, and cheating preventatives will *not* be 100% effective. But they are (and I'm using this phrase again) a good faith effort to keep people honest.

[motuterry]

Really? Wow. I am surprised. That's the strongest rejoinder I've heard. But in my opinion, it just potentially devalues Excelsior. As someone looking for a second degree from one of the big three, I'll definitely look into and verify that before I take the plunge. I would encourage others to do so as well.

There may be a misunderstanding regarding EC exams. All exams are proctored through Pearson Vue. Security includes finger printing, pictures, and direct monitoring. Many courses have mid-term or final exams that may be open book and non-proctored. Like many other online and B &M colleges, the exams are generally timed and the questions require mastery of the subject material.. ie -you can’t simply look up an answer in the text book. The questions typically involve new information and require the application of knowledge learned at that point in the course. Further these midterm and final exams are not weighted as the whole course grade.

[peace123]

There may be a misunderstanding regarding EC exams. All exams are proctored through Pearson Vue. Security includes finger printing, pictures, and direct monitoring. Many courses have mid-term or final exams that may be open book and non-proctored. Like many other online and B &M colleges, the exams are generally timed and the questions require mastery of the subject material.. ie -you can’t simply look up an answer in the text book. The questions typically involve new information and require the application of knowledge learned at that point in the course. Further these midterm and final exams are not weighted as the whole course grade.

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...