Denmark's education minister will let high schools check students computers

http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/minister-vil-lade-gymnasier-tjekke-elevers-computere

by drsim • 9 years ago

38 51 9 years ago

QAPereo3• 9 years ago

Encrypt everything.

tjoff2• 9 years ago

Obviously you'd be required to decrypt anything they tell you to. You are required to cooperate until they feel confident that you aren't cheating.

I find it kind of weird that they use their own computers on a test.

QAPereo3• 9 years ago

Forget your passphrase, it’s a school, they can’t exactly hold you in contempt.

jopsen6• 9 years ago

Or don't bring your own laptop as an aid to the exam.

Bring a netbook.. or backup your laptop and do a clean install before going to the exam.

gear54rus• 9 years ago

How are we supposed to red that? English source?

KozmoNau72• 9 years ago

Learn Danish, I guess. But we'll have to check your laptop first, in case you're cheating by using Google Translate or something.

Svip3• 9 years ago

Here are the highlights from the article:

The Danish education minister (Merete Riisager) is proposing allowing schools to check their students' private computers, as well as their social media activity (and other internet activity), to avoid cheating occurring during tests/exams.

The ministry also clarifies that the schools should not be allow to force access to this information, but can demand access to a student's computer as a prerequisite for their access to the test/exam.

Should a student refuse, the school should be able to confiscate their equipment for up to 24 hours or completely expelling the student from the school. (Note: The article isn't clear whether this means from just the exam or indefinitely.)

It's important to note this is still a proposal. That is, it is in the very early stages of becoming bill or even law. Right now it is in the hearing process.

slavik81• 9 years ago

I don't understand the context. Does the principal come to my house, boot up my desktop and start looking through what I've been doing the past year? Or is this only applicable to computers brought into exams? If personal computers are used in exams, what accomodations are made for students who do not own computers?

Svip3• 9 years ago

As far as I know, computers are not required for tests/exams. But are allowed as 'aid'. Therefore, they won't care about one's desktop at home, but only about the laptop one will be bringing into the test/exam room.

So with this proposal, if one refuses to let the school check one's equipment, one can still attend the test/exam, but without one's equipment. Or one can be expelled.

TheSpiceIsLife3• 9 years ago

Whenever I read about theee proposal I get excited to find out about the unintended consequences.

chvid• 9 years ago

This is a somewhat sensational reading of what this is about.

There are some tests; ie. essay writing where students sit in a big hall for up to 4 hours and write their essay (as shown on the photo).

Here they are allowed (but not required) to write on their own computer but they are of course not allowed to use the internet to get someone external to write their essay for them.

The possibility of control is a measure to prevent that.

Svip3• 9 years ago

It's been over ten years since I last took a test/exam at this educational level, so I may be unfamiliar with today's procedures. But I do recall also being allowed to use computers in mathematics' tests/exams.

You are correct that I neglected to mention that computers are not required during the test. But I felt I maintained the same tone as the article.

jopsen6• 9 years ago

This actually seems relatively decent. If you care about privacy you format your laptop before bring it to an exam as an aid.

That way you also avoid accidentally bringing along any books, old essays or other remedies you're not allowed to bring.

Note: IMO, people shouldn't cheat :)

ilkkao• 9 years ago

Doesn't feel very realistic that average teachers can actually find hidden or encrypted files.

In Finland they use a custom live Linux image from a USB stick during the major exams: https://github.com/digabi/digabi-os That is much harder to bypass. There's an old blog post (2013) about its security: http://globatic.blogspot.dk/2013/08/evaluating-security-of-d...

protomyth• 9 years ago

The update section of that blog post is very interesting for the ways to attempt subversion. Sure beats the locked down web browser based solutions I have seen.

aaxa• 9 years ago

This is a proposal that hopefully won't make it through. This is so over the line in terms of privacy. I really hope that the rest of the politicians can understand how this is a major issue. No teacher or anyone else for that matter, should get access to students private files and social media accounts.

whazor• 9 years ago

I believe that this is great for children in order to become techies. At my high school, I learned a lot by having to configure a SSH server at port 80, in order to avoid port and site blocking. Luckily, they never blocked the link to putty.

KozmoNau72• 9 years ago

I learned a lot from bypassing the deep freeze software they used on school PCs, from hiding games on network drives and bypassing the proxy servers.

It was a hell of a lot more fun than the actual "computing classes", which were basically just learning to use MS Word.

riffraff• 9 years ago

Why do you even need computers during high school Tests? I feel very out of touch.

yodsanklai• 9 years ago

Could be handy to write essays, or for simple quizzes that can be graded automatically.

rahimnathwani• 9 years ago

"or for simple quizzes that can be graded automatically"

I remember at least one test like that when I was at school (in the early 90s). There was a special printed form with places where you would mark your answers (to multiple-choice questions) by filling in rectangles with a pencil. These were read by computer.

Of course, this would be even easier to implement now. No need for students to carry computers or a fancy SPA to administer the test.

(Assuming you don't need adaptive testing.)

ginko• 9 years ago

Even so, why would you allow students to bring their own devices? Just provide some terminals managed by school IT.

jopsen6• 9 years ago

If you're doing any serious math you need a CAS.

When I did the HTX (technical/science oriented highschool) in Denmark they even experimented with internet access for essays, etc.

IMO, we should focus on sniffing out cheating by good old fashion looking people over the shoulder. And focus our attention on teaching kids not to cheat.

crottypeter• 9 years ago

I don't know what a CAS is but I disagree that it is needed for "any serious math".

Perhaps trig, calculus, differential equations, etc. aren't "serious" enough??

jacobolus2• 9 years ago

If you're doing any serious math you need a CAS.

You must be joking. There is no math course I’ve ever heard of from 1st grade through graduate school which should “need a CAS” (or even an electronic calculator of any kind) on exams to demonstrate understanding of the content of the course or fluency with its proofs or problem solving tools.

In most cases designing exams around CAS use (or calculator use in general) makes them far worse at testing student understanding or problem solving skill.

The reason calculators are used in mathematics exams is because calculator vendors (especially Texas Instruments) were very effective at making back-room deals with textbook publishers and standardized test sponsors (and sometimes public officials), and ran decades of great subversive marketing aimed at anxious parents. Not because of any particular pedagogical value of the calculators.

Tools like Mathematica or Maple can be very helpful for mathematical research or mathematical modeling in other technical fields, and are worth learning for undergraduates, but should by no means be used on exams.

dagw• 9 years ago

Essay writing. Schools are realizing that being able to write long essays by hand is not that important a skill anymore and are letting people use computers and word processors to write their essays instead.

maldeh• 9 years ago

Handy google translate link:

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=da&tl=en&u=h...

yason• 9 years ago

Disregarding how easy it would be to hide stuff in the system to the extent that school staff can't find it I find it hilarious how attractive complexity is.

It used to be pen and paper, maybe a slide rule. You couldn't cheat except by bringing in extra books or papers which were easy to detect.

Then they allowed electric scientific calculators which were checked prior exams. You could theoretically store some meaningful constants in their memory but it wouldn't have been very useful.

Then laptops... what a can of worms! Even making read-only terminals available for students during exams would open up loads of potential holes for cheating. But that's nothing in comparison to private laptops. Even private laptops booting the school's own USB images would be highly untrusted but letting students run their own software and hoping school staff to find any problems by inspecting them is, from the policy viewpoint, just going bananas.

In fact, if I were a non-hacker student I would oppose strongly to the whole idea because I could be certain that at least some of my peers would be using their laptops to hack themselves an advantage over me and most others.

mosselman2• 9 years ago

I don't really agree with your last statement. It might be a cultural thing, I have no idea where you went to school, but what do I care what grades other students get? If you are on the verge of failing on a test, then yes, the average of the group will determine whether there will be corrections made to all grades which could make the difference between passing or failing (5.3/10 becomes 5.6/10), but apart from that I could not have cared less when I was in school or university.

You are right that pen and paper was complex enough. In fact there are many studies that show that children learn better when writing on and reading from paper than on and from screens. In picking schools for my kids I will take the use of paper and real books into very strong account.

viraptor2• 9 years ago

Some tests are graded depending on how the whole group performed. That means that one of the tests I took in highschool where the answers leaked was: 1 wrong answer - mid grade, 2 wrong answers - fail. Normally, you'd need 10+ wrong answers to fail that one. Anyone trying their best without cheating was likely to fail.

adrianN• 9 years ago

I care because I want to live in a fair society where cheaters are punished, not rewarded.

dalbasal• 9 years ago

..Because they're people and people are sensitive to fairness, especially as you get into more formal ways of doing things like tests.

viraptor2• 9 years ago

I think that depends on the test only. If you have a test which involves doing calculations provided to you - you shouldn't need any extra tools - it's the execution that's tested. On the other hand, if the test involves you figuring out the solution, then it shouldn't matter what you have with you. (As long as you can't communicate with others)

I know this is not that common, but for good tests, cheating like that should be irrelevant.

icebraining• 9 years ago

Calculators have been fully programmable computers at least since the 90s, you can download programs, games, etc. For example: http://www.ticalc.org/pub/86/basic/math/

z3t4• 9 years ago

They would need something to scramble radio signals. Or the students could just use spy devices that are very small and can be hidden in clothes. In Sweden there's a test that you can take and if you nail it you can get into any school you want ...

jopsen6• 9 years ago

or maybe just look people over the shoulder :)

IMO, requiring the use of a school supplied computer isn't the worst either. And then you could just set it up with a key logger and a screen recorder.

ulrikmoe• 9 years ago

Hold your horses... Firstly, the minister tried to remove internet access from high school exams (good idea!), but parliament opposed this. Secondarily, the law is designed for cases where you know that someone cheated. A teacher might very well see someone exchange files on dropbox, but it is often impossible to prove. The law would allow the teacher to ask the student to show his/her "dropbox folder". The student can reject this, but naturally this will have consequences.

jopsen6• 9 years ago

Also don't bring a personal laptop as an exam aid, if you don't want it inspected.

IMO, a clean format, or just removing sensitive files to a backup drive seems reasonable.

soegaard3• 9 years ago

Some context: All danish high school students have their own laptop. Exams are supposed be a test of what the students have learned during the course (for the written exams this means during the last two or three years). To make exams reflect the normal work process of s student most exams are open book - books, notes, old exercises and papers are allowed.

Some exams are divided in two (English, math etc): one short part with nothing but paper and pencil and one longer part with everything allowed (except communication with others).

In recent years the publishing houses have gone digital in a big way. Some school no longer provide books for the student - the school buys subscriptions for online books. Until this year internet access during exams were forbidden (with the exception of access to dictionaries). This year a new law adjusted the rules. A wide coaliation of parties including the all three parties of the government decided that internet access should be allowed to.

This summer a few students were caught cheating. During the written exam they uploaded the paper/exercises to a firm that offered to write the paper for them - for a fee of course. As the rules are now only the student is breaking the law.

The minister felt a need to react and sent out a statement that internet access were to be banned. However she forgot to ask the coalition behind the high school reform. Even the two other parties in the government disagreed. In short: internet access will probably not be banned.

The latest idea from the minister is to allow high schools to search the computer of a student, if the school has a suspicion of cheating. (The irony is that the minister is from the most liberal party in danish politics).

Cheating is of course a serious matter, but the current proposal seems to be somewhat overreaching. It will hopefully not get the enough votes.

Question: How would you prevent cheating in an exam where internet access is allowed?

geon• 9 years ago

If it is a school issued laptop, I see no problem. It should be clear that the laptop is school property and may be searched.

If a student wants privacy, they simply use a personal device.

soegaard3• 9 years ago

In Denmark most high schools assume students bring their own laptop.

zimpenfish• 9 years ago

Question: How would you prevent cheating in an exam where internet access is allowed?

Ask questions that require demonstration of understanding on the student's part; not merely parrotting facts.

Denmark's education minister will let high schools check students computers

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