WARNING: Don't try and cheat on Sophia, they are suspending lots of accounts!

[LevelUP]

Sophia is open-book,  meaning you can use their materials, but don't try to use AI and don't try to have other tabs open, such as Google etc or you risk getting your account suspended. 

Remember, 70% final grade is just as good as 100%, it doesn't matter once the course is transferred into your college.


Detection Methods

• Browser Monitoring: Sophia uses software to track your browser activity during unproctored tests. Moving away from the tab, opening new windows, or switching tabs can trigger "blur/focus" alarms.
  
  
• Typing Analysis: The platform uses typing tests and behavioral checks to verify your identity.
  
  
• IP and Location Tracking: System algorithms log suspicious logins to catch instances where a student uses a VPN or shares login details with others.
  
  
• AI & Plagiarism Checkers: Written touchstones are scanned for AI generation and plagiarism.
  

[Vle045]

They are getting wise. While some students might not like it, it protects their integrity. I did see a few job postings related to this recently.

[NotJoeBiden]

I would say this extends to any and all education programs. Don’t cheat.

[SteveFoerster]

I would say this extends to any and all education programs. Don’t cheat.

Thank you. That's the real point.

[LevelUP]

Just a quick follow-up:

People might not realize how strict Sophia's background monitoring has become. Checking social media, emails, etc., or in any way clicking or moving your mouse away from Sophia's open browser tab, triggers 'blur/focus' alarms.

The system doesn't know you're just multitasking, not cheating. It will just flag it as suspicious activity. If you need to do literally anything else, it's best to just log out of Sophia and come back later. Don't risk your account!

[JPN]

I'm curious what this means for folks using Symbolab or Desmos for Calculus I. I haven't started on this course but I guess I'll need to acquire a physical graphing calculator.

[JPN]

I did more reading about this on Reddit. It seems that they've removed Ctrl+F from the courses intentionally, and they primarily seem to be sanctioning accelerators that are finishing courses in a few days, so I would infer cheating to also include people that are accelerating through courses with Ctrl+F without engaging with the content. 

I think they collect blur and focus events hence why some people are getting milestone pop-ups saying AI assistance isn't permitted, but I honestly think that's more just supporting evidence. 

In practice I highly suspect they're focusing on people speeding through courses, because everyone sanctioned and having posted details online mentions having completed multiple courses in a short period of time, and the only person who had their account reinstated on appeal mentioned that they were only accelerating a single single science course in 4 days (and was cleared with an oral exam). 

Supporting this theory is that all of the sanctions seems to have landed at the same time (12 days ago). It's way easier to retroactively do a SQL query on a learner's course completion velocity to find outliers versus doing a micro-analysis of someone's mouse clicks in and out across tens of thousands of learners. 

Sources:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SophiaLearning/s/HCzP6mWCpN

https://www.reddit.com/r/SophiaLearning/s/38sutowmUp

[LevelUP]

I did more reading about this on Reddit. It seems that they've removed Ctrl+F from the courses intentionally, and they primarily seem to be sanctioning accelerators that are finishing courses in a few days, so I would infer cheating to also include people that are accelerating through courses with Ctrl+F without engaging with the content. 

I know they definitely collect blur and focus events hence why some people are getting milestone pop-ups saying AI assistance isn't permitted, but I honestly think that's more just supporting evidence. In practice I highly suspect they're focusing on people speeding through courses. 

Sources:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SophiaLearning/s/HCzP6mWCpN

https://www.reddit.com/r/SophiaLearning/s/38sutowmUp

I wonder if we have Todd Wallack to thank for this?

[daydream]

Just a quick follow-up:

People might not realize how strict Sophia's background monitoring has become. Checking social media, emails, etc., or in any way clicking or moving your mouse away from Sophia's open browser tab, triggers 'blur/focus' alarms.

The system doesn't know you're just multitasking, not cheating. It will just flag it as suspicious activity. If you need to do literally anything else, it's best to just log out of Sophia and come back later. Don't risk your account!

This is good to know. Thank you. I'm glad that lockdown software isn't required though. My computer is from 2012 and I don't think my macOS version is compatible with lockdown.

[animuscerebri]

I did more reading about this on Reddit. It seems that they've removed Ctrl+F from the courses intentionally, and they primarily seem to be sanctioning accelerators that are finishing courses in a few days, so I would infer cheating to also include people that are accelerating through courses with Ctrl+F without engaging with the content. 

I know they definitely collect blur and focus events hence why some people are getting milestone pop-ups saying AI assistance isn't permitted, but I honestly think that's more just supporting evidence. In practice I highly suspect they're focusing on people speeding through courses. 

Sources:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SophiaLearning/s/HCzP6mWCpN

https://www.reddit.com/r/SophiaLearning/s/38sutowmUp

I wonder if we have Todd Wallack to thank for this?

Based on people's reports from Reddit, Sophia now no longer provides PDFs for their courses either. I think this is totally absurd and overdone; I still have my Sophia PDFs from back in the day that I use occasionally for some work. Honestly, this is what I expect to have when you're done with a course, as it is totally normal for any regular CC or brick-and-mortal school: you get your lecture notes, material, handouts as PDFs, PPTs, or printed out. Will you get flagged for cheating if you try to print their website material out as well, because they no longer provide PDFs? Just because some people abuse some aspects of the platform shouldn't mean to make the platform worse in terms of service (PDFs - or other documents - are standard for courses).

I understand they want to maintain integrity and they are obviously reacting to the reporter's questions, but you should do it in a measured way, and not screwing the platform so that people are afraid of even taking exams. Is this the intended purpose of all these measures? Obviously, they will deny it, but the outcome looks like it.

Heck, I would prefer video proctoring (record yourself and a human reviews the video later) as in the case of Saylor in order to avoid even the possibility of this nonsense of being falsely accused of cheating. Charge $5 for a proctored exam, and everybody keeps his or her piece of mind. 

I read a couple of the reports of people trying to appeal. It seems like it is a role of the dice if you get the chance to clear your account. In a few cases, you're lucky to get a Teams or Google Hangout meeting with Sophia staff so that they conduct an oral exam with you on the respective subject, but most of the people reporting on Reddit seem to get banned permanently due to "not having presented enough evidence to clear the account." I deduce that Sophia doesn't have the man power to conduct so many meetings or do manual reviews. I'm pretty sure that thousands of people got flagged the past few weeks, and Sophia can't (or even doesn't want to) follow up with them. Therefore, they apparently just leave you banned (it's easier, less work for them, and cheaper than hiring people to scrutinize cases).

I was thinking about going back for a month (due to their current discount offer) for 2 courses (I'm simply interested in them), but not having PDFs afterwards is a big turnoff for me. Thus, I'm not going back.

In my opinion, the current state and quality of this platform makes it more appealing for potential competitors to setup their own platform or change their current platform to cater better to the needs of students trying to get low cost and fast ACE credits. 

What do you think?