OK. So. I'm teaching an online course this semester. For the exams, I was told that we were doing a trial of an online proctoring system. I'd put the exams online, in a system where they could only be opened once, and then the students would each connect to a service where they would sit at their computers and take the exam while someone watched them through their webcams and also kept an eye on their screens. I think it was also supposed to shut down any browser windows other than the one that had the test, and a couple of other security things. They said that it would be up and running by this week. Our first exam is scheduled for this Friday. I hadn't gotten any information from them, so I emailed them over the weekend, to ask what was up.

Today, I got an email from them, saying that they've got a new timetable, and the system won't be working until the end of September. So, now, I've got to scramble to find ways for my students to all take the exam. A lot of them will be able to come to campus and take it as a group, but some of them won't, and so I've got to figure out things with each of them individually.

ARGH.

So they want real Proctoring - not open book , open note. So it will cost. ( i do open book open note proctoring at the library - check id, note time - scan or fax things back - no charge ). That's interesting

So at the library there has been some issues - that involve coverage and scheduling. So someone came up with the genius idea of doing a one week schedule - instead of a two week schedule. that loses all flexibility and has everyone that is not a manager working either every Saturday or Sunday. some people just found out today. and flipped out. theperson who is representing my branch asked for solutions. She got a list of problems with the proposal. Now, despite the fact that I am going to put my resume together, I came up wth some actual partial solutions. You'd think librarians would be better at using their brains. sigh ( honestly , i don't think this 1 week schedule will work, it has some major flaws, but I decided I should be prepared)

There are also proctoring services at places like Kaplan, but again there is a cost. At my school this would not be up to the instructor to solve on their own- IT and the department admin(me) would be involved and the school would probably pay for a different service. Unless it is IT telling you this, and then they are sort of incompetent!

Without proctoring, we minimize cheating in online tests in Blackboard by making people take them at a designated time, and making the time frame they have to take the test so short that they do not have time to look things up, but I don't know how well that would work for math. Alternately, we make the tests really difficult, but open book.

Oh, and there is also a testing room at the library that we can book for people to take a paper test with no computer or resources available, which is monitored by the library staff. And I as admin have done the same thing for professors in an empty office that I can watch.

I have a dentist appointment at 11:30. I'm already upset. There isn't really anything to do.

I sort if took tapering off klonopin in my own hands and it had been ok. I told my therapist about this but Ive got it in my head he thinks anytime I take it is bad. So I don't even want to take any now to "prove" I don't need it and that's adding stress.

Would it help if you viewed taking Klonopin before the dentist as "proving" you know how to use it as a necessary tool for specific situations? Lots of people who don't have a general anxiety disorder have dental anxiety, so you have nothing to prove here. You'd be making a choice to help yourself get through a known stressor.

Well I took some early this morning when I couldn't sleep and was going to bring some to take when I got here. I cut up one because I really didn't want to take a full miligram. I did ok. Listened to Hamilton soundtrack. Told the hygienist about the PTSD and Asperger's. Her son is on the spectrum.

I have cavities so they will talk about a plan.

She also numbed the heck out of my mouth.

I'm going back next Friday to get cavities filled.

There are also proctoring services at places like Kaplan, but again there is a cost. At my school this would not be up to the instructor to solve on their own- IT and the department admin(me) would be involved and the school would probably pay for a different service. Unless it is IT telling you this, and then they are sort of incompetent!

IT was supposed to have the service set up already, but it's not, so they probably can't pick some other service and get it set up in two days, if they couldn't get the one they were trying to use set up in three months.

I think I got everything worked out. Most students taking the exam on campus at the scheduled time; eleven students taking it earlier in the day in the math department office at various times; two students taking it at their jobs and I'm going to email it to their supervisors, along with a form for their supervisors to sign, saying they didn't cheat; and three who can't do any of those things, so they're falling into the "Cannot come to the exam for unforeseen and reasonable reasons" clause, and we'll just drop this grade for them and average their other grades. And almost no time spent on any of the thousand other things I had to do today, because I had to do all that.

Oh, and now two professors are having an argument about whether professors should be required to use the online homework system for calculus courses, or if it should be the professor's decision whether to have online or paper homework, and they are CCing every single person in the department on every single one of these emails.