Phase 1 Step 4

PHASE 1 STEP 4 - SYNTHESIS, IDENTIFY POSSIBLE SOLUTION (DEVELOP ALTERNATIVES)

TOPIC: Cheating in Online Examinations Among University Students

Search for Information, Information Management and Looking for Solution

Solution 1:  Online proctoring
PIC:  Yong Chen Yee (KA20109)

PROS	CONS
Low in costs	Consume a lot of Internet data for the exam more than 2hours.
Convenience to use video-communication platform	The webcam angle is limited. (May fail to determine what the students look at the computer screen. They are free to access to search engine to find the solutions/put the notes at the blind spot of the camera.)
	Highly dependent on Internet speed and connection stability which can be influenced by the weather
	Participant display limit at the instructors’ end.  The layout size decreases as the number of participants increases. For example, Google Meet can display up to 49 people only. Unable to supervise all the students.

Solution 2:  Using online examination system, such as exam.net
PIC:  Syed Muhammad Faizal (MA20098)

PROS	CONS
Save a lot of time and effort to hold a formal examination.	Students still can get external help via social media to get the answers from friends
Can detection of cheats with software, split-screens, the integrity of variables, events, source code, settings or use of virtual machines and remote desktop solutions.	Hard to stop the students from referring to their study materials/notes during an online examination.
Can supplement the hard cheat protection (hindering the students to start the exam)	Highly dependent on Internet speed and connection stability which can be influenced by the weather
Lecturers can do a manual check of the student's computer; view logged suspicious events and see how the student's answers have emerged.	A lot of technical problems will occur for those who never use the site before, eg incidentally get exit from the website, internet disconnection problem. This will fail a student to sit for the exam again.
Lecturers may do a plagiarism control of the students' texts.
Exam.net is able to inform the lecturer about suspected cheating and stop candidates to answer the exam questions without giving a reasonable reason.

Solution 3:  Preparing different sets of questions
PIC:  Muhammad Aliff Haqimee (KA20123)

PROS	CONS
Students cannot communicate for the same answer from each other.	Student still can use search engine to find the solution of the question or post it to ask expert in Chegg.com or CourseHero site.
	Lecturers have to spend a lot of time to prepare different sets of questions and have to mark different sets of questions.

Solution 4:  Open-book test but with higher-order thinking skill (HOTS) questions
PIC:  Nur Mawaddah Alia Binti Alias (KH20029)

PROS	CONS
With open-book test, students can implement learning outcome by using only their thinking skill and their common sense in making some decision. It can help student enhance their performance and well-prepared for higher education institution.	Students will be unfamiliar with the new format which may need more specific instructions and guidelines.
The open book tests work when the answers cannot be readily extracted from the book (or other resources), but only from the synthesis of all the knowledge within.	Students may feel confused about the HOTS questions until they lost their focus even in open-book tests.
By using HOTS questions, students will be capable of independent thinking. This is important to ensure that they have decision making skills.	Student still can use search engine to find the solution of the question or post it to ask expert in Chegg.com or CourseHero site.
Availability of reference material allows more freedom and flexibility in constructing exam questions	Students still can get external help via social media to get the answers from friends

Solution 5:  Release exam questions one by one
PIC:  Fatin Najihah Bt Md Rizuan (KA20133)

PROS	CONS
Able to prevent candidates to upload their test questions and ask the answer from the experts on Chegg.com. or CourseHero website because of limited answering and submission time.	Students cannot proceed to next question even they had already finished and students cannot skip to next question when they have no idea on how to solve the previous question.
The students will be unable to navigate all the questions, as it limits them from know the question beforehand.	Limit the students’ choice which or what questions first that needed to answer based their difficulty.
The student can only focused on one question because the time that allocated for each question was exactly following the time required to finish and submit all the questions before next questions can be answered without given them the opportunity to cheat.	Students still can get external help via social media to get the answers from friends.

 

Final Decision

Solution 4: Open-book test but with higher-order thinking skill (HOTS) questions
PIC:  Man Jun Poh (KA20124)

 

        In the final discussion among all group members, both methods of online proctoring and implementation of open-book test but with higher-order thinking skill (HOTS) questions are chosen to be our final options. However, 4 out of 6 members thinks that implementing open-book test but with higher-order thinking skill (HOTS) questions are the best solution to overcome the cheating cases. It is mostly because even applying online proctoring questions during an online exam, there are also some stubborn students who will play the tricks by placing the notes and study materials at the blind spot of the camera. Although the exam is in open-test mode, students are free to search the materials from the reference book whereby the answers cannot be readily extracted from the book (or other resources), but only from the synthesis of all the knowledge within. By implementing open-book test but with HOTS questions, students will be capable of independent thinking besides referring to the study materials. All the exam questions will require the students with higher-order thinking skills but not memorising skills. Besides, lecturers also able to use the exam period to detect any posting of these similar questions in any search engine like Chegg.com and CourseHero website where students may post their exam questions to ask answers from the experts. Whenever similar questions are exposed to this platform without permission, the university authorities may ask the Ip address from that website author for the purpose of investigating and identify the people who are trying to ask answers for the exam questions. Therefore, instant actions can be taken to punish those candidates that violate the Honor Code during the online exam.