Open Book Exam Courses

[rickyjo]

I'm not sure if geezer/sunshine's point is completely fair. Taking advantage of a perceived loophole is not necessarily unacceptable just because you think it shouldn't be there.

Consider taxes, a conservative that believes certain tax benefits should not exist will likely still take advantage of them. There's nothing hypocritical about that, there's no reason you should suffer the consequences but not the benefits.

That said: I do not agree with the OP, but I get the point!

[skyfall123]

Taking advantage of a perceived loophole is not necessarily unacceptable just because you think it shouldn't be there.

True, but soliciting a posse to stamp out the evil FEMA credits after you used them to complete your degree is quite hypocritical. It's kind of like pulling the ladder up after you've made it to the top of the mountain. I don't expect SirJake to deny this or make excuses... after all he did say "bring it".

[rickyjo]

I see your point.

[Sunshine]

I'm not sure if geezer/sunshine's point is completely fair. Taking advantage of a perceived loophole is not necessarily unacceptable just because you think it shouldn't be there.

Consider taxes, a conservative that believes certain tax benefits should not exist will likely still take advantage of them. There's nothing hypocritical about that, there's no reason you should suffer the consequences but not the benefits.

That said: I do not agree with the OP, but I get the point!

I was asking simply out of curiosity.

[rickyjo]

Please forgive my assumption

[cookderosa]

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.

Professional licensing like nursing is different, that's set by the state- not by schools...and not really relevant because it's not something that the school has any influence over. But, anyway....to stay on topic, I believe we should all participate in preservation of the integrity of our degrees. In every way.

That said, I don't think open book/closed book tests can be monitored in any way shape or form. As a college teacher, I assure you, not even my boss knows if I'm giving open/closed book tests- nor does he care- but even if he cared, I have the educational freedom to evaluate my students in any way I see fit. If my institution were to implement a policy against open book exams I wouldn't have the option, but it's not going to happen. TESC wouldn't accept credit from the Regionally Accredited Community College I teach for? Seriously? For which sections, because if 2 of us teach the same courses, and one uses open book vs closed book how will TESC determine which of the courses they should take. (see?)

Additionally, I'd like to say that my TESC classes were all proctored exams- I must have gotten lucky <smile> but were pretty much cake. My Ocean County College quizzes and exams have all been open book and I'm having a hard time scoring over 80 on any of them- no lie. They are wicked hard. So, open/closed book testing isn't *really the measure of difficulty or integrity - it also can't be monitored.

[cjzande]

Sir Jake,

I have applied to only 9 jobs in my lifetime. I have been to 9 job interviews. I was hired at 9 jobs. I was never fired. I never had a write-up or complaint made against me. My employers always gave me glowing recommendations and expressed regret that I was leaving. Twice, I have had a previous employer come to me in a new job and try to hire me back for the old one.

I go to job interviews and sell *me* - not my degree and certainly not my schools. Good students come out of "bad" schools and bad students come out of "good" schools all the time.

THIS ARTICLE talks about just how bad cheating has gotten in college. Unless there is a massive cultural shift in which cheaters are shamed for their actions? Any efforts you've discussed here aren't going to matter in the end.

Better locks aren't going to change things. The cheaters will still figure out how to pick them.

If you cannot get over the idea that it's "too easy" to cheat on certain aspects of a TESC (or any other particular school's) degree to the point where you've become focused on what other people may be doing rather than the value of what you are doing? You really are wasting your time. You will never be able to sell you, because you will be hung up on the fear that someone will judge you poorly because of your school, and it is likely you won't be able to overcome it. People will pick up on it and because you seem to think your degree isn't worth much, so will they.

And that's the point. Picture two different TESC grads going to interviews for the same job. One walks in, smiling and confident. The HR person asks about his degree. The first applicant enthusiastically discusses the work he did, the knowledge he gained, and the skills he mastered, especially concerning the self-discipline and hard work it took to earn his degree with independent studying and no one to hold his hand. He is clearly proud of his work and his confidence shows it.

The second applicant goes into an interview with a different HR person. This HR person asks the same question about his degree. This second applicant shifts uncomfortably. He hems and haws a little because he just *knows* this HR person is looking down on him and why shouldn't he? Obviously *anyone* could get this degree because it's just too easy to cheat! Even though applicant #2 doesn't actually say anything of the sort out loud, his attitude is enough that the HR person picks up on it and *does* begin to doubt the quality of the degree and it leaves a negative impression.

I think it's pretty obvious who's got the better chance of being hired.

Focus on YOU. That's what matters.

[LawSchool2011]

To LawSchool2011:
Also, law school is in and of itself different because you have to pass a major exam at the end. You don't have that at any of the above schools. You have to prove your knowledge there or you're, well, screwed. If you mess around because you can get by with good grades by cheating, you'll have a rude awakening at the bar (again, not that I think you can actually cheat in LS and get good grades).

The Bar exam is not a requirement for graduation from a Juris Doctorate program at any law school. Thousands of people attend and graduate from ABA accredited J.D. programs every year with no intention of taking the Bar and practicing as attorneys. Even more people yearly attend law school via distance learning and correspondence. The latter consists almost entirely of non-proctored, open-book exams. These programs, while not ABA accredited, satisfy the California State Bar's eligibility requirements to sit the Bar exam. Once someone passes the California Bar Exam, regardless of the "type" of law school they attended, most states will allow graduates to sit their Bar's exam with few, if any additional requirements.

This brings up another valid point.

Currently, California and Vermont do not require an undergraduate degree or even law school in order to sit their respective Bar exams. The California State Bar allows students with 60 undergraduate credits from any RA institution to enroll in brick & mortar law schools as well as distance learning and correspondence schools. The Bar also provides a "Special Applicants" route for fulfilling pre-legal education. Anybody 18 or older who takes the English Composition CLEP, followed by 12 more CLEP credits has satisfied the Bar's requirements to attend law school.
Furthermore, these two states' "Law Office Study" program states that Students may "apprentice" under a judge or attorney for 4 years and then sit the California or Vermont Bar exams without ever setting foot in a law school.

Just goes to show how the college degree is becoming what the high school diploma/GED became a long time ago. As essential as a HS diploma is, only rarely does it matter just HOW you got it, as long as it is accredited and recognized. An undergraduate degree, in my observation, is no longer seen necessarily as an "apex" degree, but rather another essential step towards society's ever changing academic expectations.


Sources:
Pre-Legal Education

Correspondence or Distance Learning

Law Office or Judge's Chamber

[sirjake]

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).

Sorry to drop of the face of the discussion. After work from 7am-3:30pm yesterday, I was at a wedding till almost 10, then church this morning.

Back at it.

Reading this and the previous post makes me realize that I should have been a little more clear in my original post. I did not clarify that I do *not* see multiple-choice examinations as the only acceptable form of making sure a student has learned something. As my response to the law school dude above indicates, when a course has other requirements than just examinations upon which your grade is based that are difficult to fake, it's not apples-to-apples with what I was referring to. My impression from what you guys were saying was that Excelsior essentially tested with open book examinations and that's what your grade is made up of--basically in isolation. I was saying that if that were the case, why aren't they requiring that the examinations be proctored? What was the fundamental difference if THAT were the case?

Anyway, I have no problem with something like the described Excelsior classes (if that matters to anyone). That's why I expressed surprise and said I would have to look into it further when I thought they were essentially open-book, unproctored and nothing else: I expected higher standards from Excelsior. The type of verification that they are doing does indeed seem to cover their bases, again, as I would expect from Excelsior. You can't look at that prima facia and say, "that's lacking." Given that PFC apparently requires a proctored final, I don't think you can say on the face of it that they are lacking either.

I think that you CAN do that with Straighterline and FEMA. I've taken courses from both of those and know what's involved. Your entire grade is made up of unproctored open-book examinations. You don't have a teacher--just an "advisor" who is almost completely uninvolved. You can easily cheat through both if you want, and even if you don't cheat, you can get through it without learning virtually anything if you want to. That's the type of credit that I want to see eliminated or at least harshly restrained (perhaps to free electives or something). I think that type of credit could ultimately harm our degrees.

What set this off for me was reading somewhere that PFC courses were open book and unproctored, then seeing the aforementioned thread about getting that credit over to TESC. Having it in mind that it was unproctored, I saw this as a terrible thing. These aren't just free electives that don't matter much, but major portions of a business degree. I don't want major portions of a valuable degree to be easy to cheat or fake (for reasons I've obviously already expressed).

And yes, Peace123, I certainly do see your point of view on this. I agree with you. These EC courses do have open-book exams and are not automatically illegitimate. I should have been more circumspect and detailed in my explanation of what I see as being problematic. My apologies.

[sirjake]

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 ^_^

I'm not sure what Straighterline needs to do to legitimize their credit. As far as I'm concern, it's substandard. And I don't see their system as being legitimate *just* by verifying who is taking the examination. The fact that you can essentially look up the answers for the entirety of your grade is, to me, still problematic.