Writing Online College Exams that Aren't a Breeze to Cheat On

Last month I wrote multiple choice exams for my classes. It took about two weeks in my spare time. I took questions provided by the textbooks I selected for the same reasons, which is to provide outlines and structures for the courses. When I was finished writing the exams, I felt unsettled. I imagined that honest students would struggle at the difficulty of some of the items and others would find ways to cheat the system. I picked a random question and typed it into Google. The exact question appeared as a “Flashcard Problem” with the correct answer displayed. It only took a few seconds to find online. I didn’t have to know what any of it meant, and I could have found the correct answer without thinking.

Online cheating can be handled in the classroom by requiring that students give you their cell phone before giving them the written exam. Online is a different story.

 

Our learning management system has an online testing function called “lockdown browser,” which means that students are locked into the exam while they’re taking it. This just means that they’ll have to perform a search on a second device. Take the exam on their phone while they search for the answers on a tablet. Lockdown browsers benefit cheaters who have money. I imagined my poorest and most destitute students struggling because of their poverty, and this seemed unfair.

 

My first thought was to ask open-ended application questions where students could apply their knowledge solving unique problems. In my experience, however, AI (such as ChatGPT) tends to do a better job at writing moderate and longer responses than students. Students will use words without understanding what they mean, which results in a meaningless essay. AI will define all terms (sometimes incorrectly), give a few examples and one concern, then conclude with a summary. It’s tidy if annoying to read. Of course, I’m not interested in reading even one essay written by AI. So it seems like any online open response questions are out.

 

And so I enlisted the help of my wife, who was a straight-A student who is still uncomfortable even hearing the word “cheat.” She suggested that I rewrite the questions so they couldn’t be easily searched online. I tried to poke holes in her idea, because that’s a lot of rewriting, but it was actually a pretty good suggestion. I don’t have to reinvent the questions, I just have to change all proper nouns and a few verbs and adjectives to nearest synonyms so AI couldn’t recognize the questions.

 

I think this will work in the short term or until I can find another way to structure my courses. Part of me thinks that I won't make it until the first week of class before getting rid of the exams and reverting to a dynamic course-build with students.