Automated Randomization of Test Problems for Cheating Prevention

Chang J. Lee

Use of mobile devices in classes is no longer an unusual practice these days. In an offline college chemistry class I taught recently, regular textbooks and pocket calculators or computer labs were forgone in favor of mobile devices and apps available in app stores. My role as an instructor was to guide the students to use the apps on mobile devices to solve problems relevant to chemistry. Students were encouraged to discuss and help each other in utilizing the apps to solve chemistry problems, and it was certain that they were highly engaged in learning with this approach. However, a downside of using mobile devices is that it can make cheating much easier. In the spirit of the class students were allowed to use them in examinations to solve problems, and it was found that cheating was more widespread among students than in traditional pen and paper examinations. In this paper I discuss a system developed with web technologies for mitigating student cheating on tests and report the outcome of implementation of the system.