By Catherine Anne Daley and Sophie Staples
The concept of flexible exams is a simple one. Basically, students take unproctored exams at a location and time of their own choosing. Or, professors have control over timing and retain flexibility in location in order to mitigate logistical problems. The benefits for students of flexible examinations are obvious. A personalized exam schedule with exams spaced for optimum study time means that students’ grades will be determined by something other than the randomness of UREG. The benefits for faculty are also important. Under a flexible exam system, the burden on faculty of grading deadlines would be ameliorated by receiving exams on a rolling basis or within a window determined by the preference of each instructor. Computer based exams would also eliminate the hassle associated with administering, collecting, and grading regular paper exams.
The Honor Committee’s interest in flexible exams stems from its focus on benefits. Honor sees flexible exams as a benefit students should have given the unique community in which we live. Because we have an Honor Code, we as students should be trusted by our professors and our peers. The basic manifestation of that trust in the academic sphere would be unproctored and flexible examinations. The opposition surrounding the leap to unproctored exams stems from the unsettling fact about any Honor Code: It will never work unless you trust it.
Honor took on the project of flexible exams and explored the possibilities for logistics, support, and faculty participation. The new course management system Collab provides instructors with all the same options they have for the form and content of their exams while at the same time making it easy for them to administer their exam on a flexible basis. While we realize that there are some courses for which flexible exams will never be feasible, a pilot program using Collab is in place and is being used by several professors this semester to administer flexible exams and quizzes, and to handle paper submission. This is the first step in the right direction, and it is the hope of the Honor Committee that more professors will see the benefits for themselves and for their students of giving a flexible exam as the use of Collab becomes widespread over the next three semesters. Honor is also confident that when students begin to feel tangible benefits of living in this unique environment, these benefits will remind them of their continuing commitment to uphold the ideals of the Community of Trust.
Whether or not you think that widespread implementation of flexible exams is a realistic proposition, the idea gets at the heart of what the Honor System is all about: trust. The fact that many professors already give take home and open book finals outside their designated time slots indicates that the idea of trust between students and faculty is still alive at the University. A continuing dialogue among students, faculty, and administrators should serve to cultivate and support these practices.
As high school students visiting grounds, many of us heard U-Guides gush about taking an exam on the Lawn. Students should arrive at UVA to find that these visions are the reality, not just a recruiting technique. In choosing to attend this school, every single student here at the University embraced the Community of Trust. Is it too much to ask that our professors do the same?
5 comments:
I strongly disagree with the idea of flex exams. People here cheat too much without being reported to the Honor System. With flex exams, students would cheat even more. This system would only make it more unfair to students who don't cheat.
I am a Comm '72 graduate, former businessman, now professor at a private university. I read this article and much of the blog with great interest and respect for the passion that is displayed here. Yet I have concerns.
The article's argument seems to be that the Honor System needs tangible benefits in order for it to succeed. It also suggests that professors adapt open exams largely on the basis of trust in the honor system.
Honor is it's own reward. One should not need flex exams or local check-cashing privileges to realize that. If you have to promote "Honor Code specials" to attract adherents, haven't you missed the reason d'etre for such a system?
Further, your argument begs the larger issue of why a professor or TA would trust the system? After all, a recent poll suggested that the overwhelming majority of students (90+% as I recall!) would not turn in a liar, cheater, or a stealer.
Non-tolerance is a fundamental tenet of the system, perhaps THE fundamental tenet. Until students start to not "tolerate those who do" commit honor violations, who is left to assure the integrity and worth of the UVA degree? Professors.
No professor enjoys being the cop. But someone has got to do it, and there is significant evidence to suggest that students won't.
I find it telling that the non-tolerance provision appears nowhere in your straw poll of priorities. To my eye, it is the number one challenge.
I wish you all the best in your endeavors. I fully appreciate the struggles and tensions you face. God speed.
John Venable Comm '72
jmvenabl@samford.edu
Mr. Venable,
Your comments are very fascinating, but you should note one of the reasons for not including the non-toleration provision is that it has been rejected, often overhwelmingly, quite frequently in the past. Students feel, I believe rightly, that a non-toleration provision, making you culpable if you do not report a violation, is not creating real Honor. It just creates fear and paranoia.
What if you don't know whether what you saw is an offense? Should you go through the hassle, and put the accused student through the trauma, all to find out it isn't? Should you then not report it, be wrong, and be reported yourself?
Forced non-toleration is a nice idea, but in reality, it undermines Honor, does not improve it. Real non-toleration, where people don't tolerate because they don't tolerate, not because they're forced to not tolerate, is what improves Honor. Unfortunately, this is also what is most lacking.
Very well written post. I hope you will come with some new posts too.
Thanks for sharing! I'm looking forward in viewing more of these.
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