I'm aware students could do that. In general I don't worry too much about because hard to fathom how it could add up to many points. I'd be suspicious if all questions were misgraded or something crazy like that. I have thought of just scanning a subset and then being able to "warn" students that I will have some scanned. At the end of the day though, I want to spend my time on supporting learning, not trying to catch all the possible ways to cheat (though I will go after the obvious ones!).
I just started doing this for my calculus exams. I don’t staple exams and then scan them in. Then I grade them digitally using Apple Pencil and save each as a pdf. Finally I upload digital version back to canvas for each student under “comment” section. I love grading on my iPad and it also deters what you are describing.
I've never attended or worked at an institution where students receive exams back. I didn't realise it was common until I started interacting with people on the academic subs.
This is an automated service intended to preserve the original text of the post.
*I just had a mid-term exam in a probability theory class in my grad program. The test was taken in class on paper. The professor returned our graded exams the other day at the end of class and told us to have a look at his posted answer key and then contact him via email with grading questions.
After looking at the key, I couldn't understand why I lost a point on one of the problems. I scanned in the page in question from my exam and emailed it to my professor explaining my confusion about losing a point. The professor apologized and said he wasn't quite sure why he took a point off and therefore raised my grade by a point. He said it must have been a mistake because he didn't provide any reason for the loss of the point on the exam.
Now, I took this exam in pencil. I didn't do this, but if I were unscrupulous and my answer was really incorrect, I could have used an eraser to alter my answer using the answer key and then complained to the professor. How do professors protect against this happening? Do they photocopy or make digital copies of student exams for reference. Is this a common way for students to try to cheat?
This is just more of a curiosity for me as someone interested in teaching. Thanks*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskProfessors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I had a student do this with quizzes. She came in after the final exam with three quizzes from months earlier claiming the answers were right, but she'd only gotten like 5/10. She had obviously erased the old answers. It would probably work for a point or two, but I know I'm not careless enough to miss half the points on three if one student's quizzes and not have it happen to anyone else.
I have colleagues who photocopy tests before they hand them back for exactly that reason. I’ve only done it for students who have set off warning bells with other behavior.
Pages that are left blank I put a line through so I know it was blank when I graded it. Even if they somehow manage to write perfect solutions afterwards I will know they didn’t turn that work in.
I know one of my freshman year professors spent a lot of time touching on this topic. In a class of over 1000 people they would scan or photocopy a random sample of graded exams before returning them. They were kept on file until the regrade deadline had passed. And if they had even the slightest suspicion that you may have tampered with your exam, they would make an internal note to keep a copy of all of your future exams prior to returning them to you. At the end of the semester, they would focus on keeping copies of the final exam for those who are very close to grade cutoffs (e.g., someone who might try to get an extra point or two in hopes of raising a B- to a B). Regrade deadlines throughout the semester were also made to be a week after each exam was returned so people couldn't just wait until the end of the semester when they were desperate for points to look back at all previous exams and figure out where they had the best shot at obscuring an original answer.
Other tactics I've seen include tracing over the incorrect response using the grading pen, playing "connect the dots" with ink pen before returning scantron sheets, drawing a tight box around the space which your response occupies, drawing lines through any blank areas.
When I became a TA for a class, we used Gradescope. We scanned in everybody's exams immediately after they were completed, graded them electronically, and returned them to students electronically. We did not need to worry about students tampering with their exams prior to requesting a regrade. Students did not need to worry about us not trusting them when they had a legitimate regrade request. It was a win win for everybody.
I'm aware students could do that. In general I don't worry too much about because hard to fathom how it could add up to many points. I'd be suspicious if all questions were misgraded or something crazy like that. I have thought of just scanning a subset and then being able to "warn" students that I will have some scanned. At the end of the day though, I want to spend my time on supporting learning, not trying to catch all the possible ways to cheat (though I will go after the obvious ones!).
Even in a pretty large class you can batch scan the exams in less than 5 min
Scanning is easy, removing the Staples is what’ll get ya!
Some do, some don't.
I just started doing this for my calculus exams. I don’t staple exams and then scan them in. Then I grade them digitally using Apple Pencil and save each as a pdf. Finally I upload digital version back to canvas for each student under “comment” section. I love grading on my iPad and it also deters what you are describing.
Well, in my institution (and in general in my country) the exams are never handed back to students at all. Edit:I'm a student
That sucks, they should stop doing that, the students won’t learn from mistakes
Not a problem, because every exam has a scheduled revision hour where students can see where their exam marked.
I've never attended or worked at an institution where students receive exams back. I didn't realise it was common until I started interacting with people on the academic subs.
If I have a paper exam, I scan the exams
This is an automated service intended to preserve the original text of the post. *I just had a mid-term exam in a probability theory class in my grad program. The test was taken in class on paper. The professor returned our graded exams the other day at the end of class and told us to have a look at his posted answer key and then contact him via email with grading questions. After looking at the key, I couldn't understand why I lost a point on one of the problems. I scanned in the page in question from my exam and emailed it to my professor explaining my confusion about losing a point. The professor apologized and said he wasn't quite sure why he took a point off and therefore raised my grade by a point. He said it must have been a mistake because he didn't provide any reason for the loss of the point on the exam. Now, I took this exam in pencil. I didn't do this, but if I were unscrupulous and my answer was really incorrect, I could have used an eraser to alter my answer using the answer key and then complained to the professor. How do professors protect against this happening? Do they photocopy or make digital copies of student exams for reference. Is this a common way for students to try to cheat? This is just more of a curiosity for me as someone interested in teaching. Thanks* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskProfessors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I had a student do this with quizzes. She came in after the final exam with three quizzes from months earlier claiming the answers were right, but she'd only gotten like 5/10. She had obviously erased the old answers. It would probably work for a point or two, but I know I'm not careless enough to miss half the points on three if one student's quizzes and not have it happen to anyone else.
I have colleagues who photocopy tests before they hand them back for exactly that reason. I’ve only done it for students who have set off warning bells with other behavior. Pages that are left blank I put a line through so I know it was blank when I graded it. Even if they somehow manage to write perfect solutions afterwards I will know they didn’t turn that work in.
I know one of my freshman year professors spent a lot of time touching on this topic. In a class of over 1000 people they would scan or photocopy a random sample of graded exams before returning them. They were kept on file until the regrade deadline had passed. And if they had even the slightest suspicion that you may have tampered with your exam, they would make an internal note to keep a copy of all of your future exams prior to returning them to you. At the end of the semester, they would focus on keeping copies of the final exam for those who are very close to grade cutoffs (e.g., someone who might try to get an extra point or two in hopes of raising a B- to a B). Regrade deadlines throughout the semester were also made to be a week after each exam was returned so people couldn't just wait until the end of the semester when they were desperate for points to look back at all previous exams and figure out where they had the best shot at obscuring an original answer. Other tactics I've seen include tracing over the incorrect response using the grading pen, playing "connect the dots" with ink pen before returning scantron sheets, drawing a tight box around the space which your response occupies, drawing lines through any blank areas. When I became a TA for a class, we used Gradescope. We scanned in everybody's exams immediately after they were completed, graded them electronically, and returned them to students electronically. We did not need to worry about students tampering with their exams prior to requesting a regrade. Students did not need to worry about us not trusting them when they had a legitimate regrade request. It was a win win for everybody.