[Papa John]

The fall Qtr at Stanford ended November 20.  No classes until January 11

Thought finals were to be after Thanksgiving, but I read that the Academic Senate decided no finals for undergrad or grad students. Wow.

I'm not teaching this quarter, but I did teach online last spring. The main problem with online exams is the prevention of cheating. There are third-party outfits that will monitor students while they take an exam, but even with the invasion of privacy it's difficult to keep some students honest. I don't know if Stanford still has the Honor Code, but it's still an issue. There's also the fact that students are not on the same time zone--I had students in Asia, North America and Europe--so you have to give the exam asynchronously or else someone is taking the exam at 1 am local time. Part of my syllabus revision was to require a final project in place of an exam, and, honestly, I think the students learned more.

[Papa John]

The fall Qtr at Stanford ended November 20.  No classes until January 11

Thought finals were to be after Thanksgiving, but I read that the Academic Senate decided no finals for undergrad or grad students. Wow.

I'm not teaching this quarter, but I did teach online last spring. The main problem with online exams is the prevention of cheating. There are third-party outfits that will monitor students while they take an exam, but even with the invasion of privacy it's difficult to keep some students honest. I don't know if Stanford still has the Honor Code, but it's still an issue. There's also the fact that students are not on the same time zone--I had students in Asia, North America and Europe--so you have to give the exam asynchronously or else someone is taking the exam at 1 am local time. Part of my syllabus revision was to require a final project in place of an exam, and, honestly, I think the students learned more.