Norway Experiments With Laptop Exams For Secondary Students

An experimental trial in Norway has about 6,000 students in the country taking exams on their own government-issued laptops as an effort to improve learning in area schools, BBC News reported.

The experiment in Nord-Trondelag county in Norway has every 16-19 year-old secondary student in surrounding schools trying out the laptop-based system.

The government provides the specially tailored laptops to students when they turn 16 and protective software springs into life to block and record any attempt at cheating during exams.

The laptops come installed with standard software, such as word processors, spreadsheets and calculators, as well as subject specific applications for particular courses issued to the students.

Media students, for instance, would have their machines fitted with Adobe Photoshop, according to Bjorg Helland, project manager for digital literacy at Nord-Trondelag county council.

Norway schools had previously experimented with computers for exams in the past, but the decision to move to laptops was taken to ensure that students in the exam hall used equipment they were familiar with, Helland said.

She said the laptops are used during their final exams before going to college or university as well as during tests when the teacher wants to have an exam with the class.

Helland said the key to rolling out the laptop exams was the new monitoring system that ensured students did not cheat while taking a test or exam.

The students go to a website to download the papers for their particular exam and in some schools answers were completed on computer from paper-based questions.

Helland stated that was why the schools have to monitor the laptops during the exams, since students aren’t supposed to have Internet access or communicate with other students while testing.

She said the software allows teachers to easily capture a graphic of what the students have used or have done by employing screenshots and a keylogger.

Terje Ronning, a spokesman for computer firm XO Expect More, which has worked with Nord-Trondelag to get the system working, said the software could monitor different things during a test depending on what type of exam was being taken.

Running said students could turn to spellcheckers to help proofread their answers, but the use of anything more sophisticated was banned.

Helland reported that one of the students was using a translation program and wrote with it: ‘If you can see me, stop me now.’

"We did see her and we did stop her," she added. Any students caught cheating will fail the test just as with paper-based exams.

So far, Ronning said there had been little talk about ways to beat the monitoring software on hacker boards. Some cheaters searched for ways to trick the software into thinking it was working while giving students access to notes or the Internet.

And even though the blocking software was on the laptop all the time it was only activated during exams and tests.

Additionally, the students have no access to the tool, so they can’t sit down and configure it.

Helland said they’ve made a huge effort to make the students aware that teachers can actually see what they are doing””so the program works as a deterrent, preventing them from trying to cheat.

"Students are irritated by the fact that some students cheat on the tests. This way they can make sure it is fair for everybody,” she said.

She said the upside of the software was that it creates a way for students to prove that the work is actually their own.

Norway is now considering whether to adapt the laptop trial across the country during the new school year beginning in September.

“Schools are currently being asked if they wanted to move to computer-based exams,” said Trine Oskarsen, a spokesperson for the Norwegian directorate for education and training.

Test results would also be returned more promptly since completed papers could be e-mailed rather than posted to markers.

Norway hopes to move to a completely computer-based system for its exams in the future, she added.

Oskarsen said the national rollout would look to Norwegian schools that are early adopters of the system before carrying it out officially.