Following a trial year designed to collar students attempting to cheat the examination system, UK exam board Edexcel has claimed its technique of tagging exam deliveries with radio transmitters and applying microscopic identification into individual papers has been a success.
UK exam board uses technology to collar student cheats. Image: Edexcel.
According to Edexcel, one of the country’s leading examination boards, incidences of exam papers being hijacked prior to reaching their destinations have dropped during the first year of tagging application.
The board’s security system works by attaching radio frequency devices to a batch of exam papers before they are sent on to their waiting establishment of learning. Once attached, the devices are scanned before dispatch and tracked throughout the journey to ensure a safe and unhampered arrival.
The radio frequency devices used by Edexcel are similar to the anti-theft devices used on the likes of clothing and CDs by walk-in retail stores. The exam packages are also sealed within special bags to further boost the likelihood of delivery without light-fingered interception.
In order to boost protection levels even further, Edexcel also relies on the application of unique identification bar codes to the exam papers, and it also uses microtexting throughout the actual printing process -- the latter embeds the name of the receiving school or college into the actual exam paper and cannot be registered by the human eye.
While the idea of underhanded students attempting to steal away examination papers ahead of their actual test date might not seem like such an Earth-shattering crime, schools are actually required to place their received papers in a secure safe situated within a room with solid floors, ceilings and walls, while key access is restricted to only two or three members of staff.
Beyond its current failsafe approach, Edexcel is also looking to introduce special software designed to search for unusual patterns in a pupil’s given answers. Edexcel hopes the software’s scanning system will help weed out obvious answer similarities between exam candidates while also isolating results it considers to be well beyond levels of expectation.
And it’s not just Edexcel that is voicing concern over potential cheating as millions of pupils and students across the UK prepared to sit their GCSEs and A Level exams. Specifically, the Examination Officers’ Association has said that it would like to see CCTV cameras installed into text centres in order to pose a very obvious deterrent.
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