Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Barbara Lockwood -
Number of replies: 38

My company is very concerned about student's ability to copy/paste quiz questions and create braindumps.

Is there any way, programmatically, to disable the copy/paste (CTL-C, CTL-V) functions while a student is taking an exam?

Alternatively, could an image format be used to present the questions, with embedded fields?

Any help you could give in answering this question is appreciated. I am desperate for an answer, to head off what will be a costly custom dev project for my company, if I can't convince them to go with Moodle. Please help me sell them on the benefits of Moodle!

Thanks,

Bar Biszick-Lockwood

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Barbara Lockwood

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Jason Cole -
While this isn't currently supported (to the best of my knowledge), it would be a relatively simple fix. There are javascript routines that will prevent right-clicking and highlighting text in a browser window.

A quick search of the web revealed this javascript snippet that will prevent printing, selecting text and the right clicking menu.

<script language="JavaScript"> 

var message="Function Disabled!";

function clickIE() {if (document.all) {(message);return false;}}

function clickNS(e) {if

(document.layers||(document.getElementById&&!document.all)) {

if (e.which==1||e.which==2||e.which==3) {(message);return false;}}}

if (document.layers)

{document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);document.onmousedown=clickNS;}

else{document.onmouseup=clickNS;document.oncontextmenu=clickIE;}

document.oncontextmenu=new Function("return false") 

function disableselect(e){

return false

}

function reEnable(){

return true

}

document.onselectstart=new Function ("return false")

if (window.sidebar){

document.onmousedown=disableselect

document.onclick=reEnable

}

</script>

This could be added to the quiz page.

J
Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Barbara Lockwood

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
No.

You can make it more difficult (using Javascript as Jason has pointed out). You can make it so non-technical users will effectively be unable to do it, but at the end of the day there is no sure-fire way to secure HTML content. What happens if the user turns off javascript in their browser?

Why do you want to do this anyway? There may be another way to look at this. What do you mean by braindumps (in this context)?
In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
My facetious answer to preventing copying is to not show them to anyone. This question came up frequently when I was working on web based image libraries for a living. If you are willing to present information through a web browser an even moderatly technically knowledgable user will be able to copy that information. Using JavaScript may appear to offer a solution but anyone with a passing knowledge of print screen or any screen capture tool will defeat this. Plus you stand a very good chance of causing problems with whatever anti copying technology you use.

This is a minor element of the problem that the Intellectual Copywrite owners such as the music industry has battled with. I believe it will gradually be appreciated that the personal computer is not essentially a computing (calculating) device but a digital copying machine, and attempts to limit this essential ability are futile.
In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
Yes, in the now too many years that I have been working with web technology I get asked some variation on this question roughly once every 3 months. It actually pains me that people are so precious about their material. It's almost like trying to sell books that can't be photocopied.

Ohh... hang on Barbara comes from Redmond!!!! Who do you work for Barbara? surprise
In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Jill Kaminski -

anyone with a passing knowledge of print screen or any screen capture tool will defeat this.

Not to mention Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V ... right-clicking is not necessary to select and copy!    smile

In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Barbara Lockwood -

RE: Howard's question

My company creates certification exams for information security professionals (CISSP etc.). Students that can get a hold of the actual full exam by copy/pasting it online will often publish these on the internet (ie. braindump), which destroys the effectiveness of the certification qualifying exam. Students end up just memorizing the questions, not really knowing the principles/content. Maybe in another discipline this wouldn't be such a big deal (ie. PMI), but we're serious about making sure that when people get hired to protect companies, an a hiring factor is their certification status, we have a responsiblity to make sure employers are getting qualified pros who know their stuff.

We will be offering no cost sample exams for people to test their skill levels, but losing the entire qualifying exam ot the internet has to be avoided.

Thanks for your input.

In reply to Barbara Lockwood

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
You are getting hung up on the technology here. In an uncontrolled environment copy/past or whatever, is just the tip of the iceberg - they could write the questions down on paper, and then recreate them - and if there was money in it, they would!

I can only say what I *think* everybody else does.

You do the exam in a controlled exam *centre*. That is you can't take the exam in your home or anywhere that you like. You stop them taking stuff away. The only other way is to have vast numbers of questions and randomise them.

I'm typing this, though, knowing that this is not your company's dream (is it?) and I know that they are going down an expensive road to try to do something that can't be done sad
In reply to Barbara Lockwood

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Gunther Dippe -
You write that "Students that can get a hold of the actual full exam". Do you only have one set of questions which is being used over and over again?

It is a problem with students getting hold of the questions before the exam day and it doesn't seem what one tries to do to prevent it from happen - it happens.

My suggestion is (if possible) to try to look at the problem the other way around. Why do we ask questions that are easy to memorize and also why do we use the same questions over and over again?

One should also ask whether it is useful to put so much emphasis on a final test? There are other novel ways of checking students knowledge (and work) during the course.

Not all problems have a technical fix.

Cheers
In reply to Barbara Lockwood

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
I have spent about 5 years creating hundreds of mock exam questions aimed at candidates for the Sun Certified Java Programmers exam and so I have given some thought to this. I also have a paid for subscription to my question bank with a web interface so I have had to wrestle with the possibility of people going through my quesitons and re-publishing them /giving them away. One approach to preventing people memorising your questions is simply to create enough questions that it is easier to learn the subject than memorise the questions. Unfortunatly this means a large amount of work, creating good muliple choice questions is not trivial.

I think many people woudl be surprised at how few questions are in the bank used by most industry certifications, which is one of the reasons that braindump sites can exist.To make it very difficult to memorise you need well over 500 questions.

With reference to people ripping off your questions, as I have hinted, there is absolutly no technology fix. If the questions are that good/valuable, someone will buy a little video camera (just over £50gbp or less) put in their shirt pocket and video the screen. There IS no technological fix. As someone mentioned, to think otherwise is to desire the unphotocopiable book, but if you make a book big enough people are going to think very hard before hitting the copy button, PLUS, and here is the kicker, your product will be perceived to have high value simply because of the large number of questions.

Marcus
In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Paul Nijbakker -

I agree with Marcus and some of the above. There is no technological solution that will rule out copying of quiz questions. I use different approaches in my courses:

1 I create a large collection of questions from which to create quizzes with a certain amount of randomness.

2. I make sure the students know that I never give the same quiz twice.

3. A large amount of my questions are open questions, which require that students write answers (in their own words!) in which they support arguments, demonstrate skills and knowledge. (I use the Journal tool for this in Moodle, until a paragraph writing question will be added to the quiz tool).

4. Quizzes are never the only, and never the main evaluation element in a course, but serve mainly to motivate students to study certain course materials. This makes it easier to spot cheating and limits its effect if it should go unnoticed.

In reply to Paul Nijbakker

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Timothy Takemoto -

I am not sure why all the technologically gifted people say "It aint possible to protect web pages, you may as well give up."

Sure, it is not possible to protect web page 100% but it is possible to protect them enough to reduce the amount of copying very considerably. 

Sure there will be those that take photographs of the screen, or that use screen capture software. But most people will not go that far. And even if they do go that far it is a drag, a pain in the brain for the would be copier.

I heartily recommend Rob Butner's script. You  can see instructions for its use here.
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=3982&parent=39767

I still have not figured out how to have both prevent right click and Rob Butners' anticopying script above. I have also heard of scripts that keep a list of IP addresses of people that right click pages. I think that would be nice too.

In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
Very respectfully T., I think you are wrong on this occasion.

Given the requirement, it would only take one technologically knowledgeable person (or even someone motivated enough just to write them down) to copy the questions and make them available on the web. I think that would be something close to a certainty given that, I suspect, this accreditation is expensive.

I think the answer is clear - a huge bank of questions AND some methods to make it inconvenient to copy.
In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
It depends on the value of the questions. If there is a reasonable amount of prestiege or a small amount of money attached to being able to answer the questions you can be almost certain that sooner, not later someone will copy them. I have 16 year olds who  can buy or borrow a little battery powered web cam with some ram. They know how to use free screen capture software.

If your questions are purely summative, e.g. you are there when they take the questions and it is for you to work out what they know then the candidates will probably not make any attempts to get copies to memorise.

The thing about creating large numbers of questions is that it makes it next to impossible to pass the test by memory, almost no technology can defeat the need to be able to recall the answer to 600 or 800 questions (assuming the testee is being observed taking the exam).


In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Ger Tielemans -

In 1979, so long before computers did exist in peoples' mind, I had at the University a mathematics teacher.

He offered us two books: one with the difficult text and one with 1000 multiple choice questions. He said to us: you can study the text or learn the questions by heart, In both cases you will manage the topic.

  • The topic was an advanced course in statistics, covering the binomial error-model, the itemparams of a normaloglyph, advanced item/respons theory etc..
  • The teacher was a leading professor in psychometrics: he used a cold error correction-model: that good students guessed less, so had the right to get a plus, and we the borderliners got an extra minus.. Of course we had a debate wih him about this, not about his two books approach.
  • I still use the textbook, not the questions book, I passed the exam, i forgot which option I choose smile

In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Timothy Takemoto -
I find it hard enough to think up 10 questions (with 3 distractors and a correct answer each, let alone 1000). Your teacher was a clever man.
Tim
In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Bernard Boucher -
Hi all,
for me, the best way to secure quiz questions from copy is to use the same questions, by preference imported with the gift format, in a lesson not in a quizwink.

That way only one question at a time will appear.

If you add more questions that will be better,

If you use Timothy locked theme that will also be better.

But that will never be perfect.

In a couple of yearsthoughtful, at my current developpement speed, with that text authoring system, you will only have to specify or describe your concepts in a simple way: a primitive form using some form of Bloom taxonomy.

The system will automatically generate questions about it with appropriated distractors, using
the primitive or the antonym verbal forms.
Also the reciproque will be handled for the primitive and the antonym forms.
Adding to that the negative form and few synonyms and mixing of others existing concepts and of the Bloom levels, you will get easily the "critical mass" of 100+ questions for each concept to verify in your quiz.

That will not be perfect nor applicable to all domains, but that will help.

In meantime, have a good lessonsmile,

Bernard

In reply to Bernard Boucher

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Timothy Takemoto -
I look forward to your Bloom Taxonomy text authoring proram Bernard. I am stick to the back teetch of questions. And stil not nearly enough.
Timothy
In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Timothy Takemoto -

Okay, Howard

In this case, when the quiz is costly and even the slightest leak is a major financial problem then the fact that there are always ways around the measures taken are crucial.

For the most of use however, the ability to put students off copying is a large part of the problem. My students do not have a cash motive, only to save time. If it takes more time copying then they will not bother.

So I enclose an updated version of the anti copying measures here below. This is basically Rob Butners and Indjana Dzons' hack, packaged as simply as possible.

The best think about this hack is that it exists entirely in your theme, so there is no need to worry about what happens when you update moodle.

1) Insert

<?php
if (stristr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']."X", "attempt.phpX") || stristr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']."X", "review.phpX"){
  include("blockit.html"); }

  ?>

Into the header.html in your theme. I put it at the second to last line before the <!-- END OF HEADER --> because that enables me to put a warning just below the header, at the top of the quiz (see below)

The above code is simply to decide which of the many moodle pages get the anti-copy/paste treatment. I prevent copying and pasting of quizes (attempt.php) and their feedback.

2) Create a file that does the blockign, called blockit.html in your theme folder.

I attact my version of blockit.hml which includes
  3.1) A warning saying that copying is forbidden in quizes which is displayed at the top of quiz pages.  
  3.2) A right button click blocker that says again that copying is forbidden,
        and that the users' IP addresses has been recorded, along with the
        users' ip address. 
  3.3) The super-java script blocker supplied by Rob Butner here, which prevents an variety of forms of copying, including print screen using CTRL P (all that is printed out is a blank page).  This super duper javascript is obfuscated to help prevent users from realising why they cannot copy.

Be warned that while blockit.hml or a quiz window is open, no copying and pasting can be done on the computer. It is quite a miracle.

4) I have included
<nolink>
at the end in the hope that this will prevent quizes being linked to the glossary. I have not tested this yet.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to improve the blockit script? I would like scary warnings to appear when people press control C as well.

I have also included the pix to make my header work for you. The header, in use on my Moodles, is based on a part of an Invision board theme supplied by 
http://www.invisionskins.com/index.php?p=skins
copyright 2003 Roadkill71
http://www.roadkill71.com

Timothy

In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Timothy Takemoto -

The wonderful and miraculous copy blocker works fine as described above.

But for some strange reason the " <nolink> " does not work.

Even though a header incuding " <nolink> " is appended  to the tests, the glossar links to the tests.

Why?

1) There is no </nolink>?

This seems unlikely. I could, if I tried, work out the php required for the footer to include a </nolink> when we are on a test. But surely this cannot be the problem.

2) The <nolink> tag does not reign over other tags.
I a not sure why

uk

Tim


In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Ger Tielemans -
Students will always be more clever then you and me, why not change strategy and toy with that cleverness?
In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Timothy Takemoto -
When it comes to using computers, I find that my students are pretty inept at using computers. I am often cleverer than they are. This is not because I am clever but because it is about as much as they can do enter a URL and get to a page. Some of the know that the right click button can be used for copying things.

You make it sound simple to change strategy. How do you suggest that I change strategy? I am open to suggestions. 

I do not have the option of making hundreds of questions.
In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
My students frequently seem inept at doing what they are supposed to learn, and experts at doing the stuff at the fringe I would prefer they did not do smile.

Task: Explain networking
Response: Blank stares

Task not to do: Set up a multi player doom session over the
Wireless networking .....

In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Ger Tielemans -

To start your brainstorm about this subject:

  1. If you make one question, then always make one or two slightly modified versions of that question (use random question: yes you get to much categories then..)
  2. If you have no time, why not give the students the assignment to create the questions as homework in Word or better in Excel: deliver the Moodle format and let them decide about the feedback and the points
  3. put exercise 2 in a forum and let them comment on/improve eachothers'  questions.
  4. End your quizz with several open questions: let students describe alternatives for your questions in the current quiz: they can earn bonus points for this.
  5. Start (or end) your workday with creating one question (200 in a year, 400 in 2 years, 600 in 3 years...)
In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Good advice. Creating 10 questions in one day is misery, creating one question a day for 10 days is a pleasant distraction.
In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Timothy Takemoto -
And then, after having spent a year, or 10 days creating a bank of questions a student copies them puts circles on the correct answers and passes the copies around amoung his mates and his juniours.

This may happen anyway, but bearing in mind the misery, copy protection is a very important feature.

Tim
In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Genner Cerna -
I agree with you Timothy, same problem in our school.
In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Michael Penney -
copy protection is a very important feature.

After you apply it, that student clicks print screen on your test, and does the same thing with a jpeg. If you find a way to stop print screen (good luck with that in a browser environment), they take a picture of their laptop with a digital camera. You just end up in an unwinnable 'arms race'. If you think your 50 question test is uncopyable because you've got some cool javascripts, the more affluent students are copying it with their cell phone cams, and getting all the As. So its better to realize students can copy the test, and spend time on other measures to make copying fruitless.

Your fighting the underlying design of the web in addition to your students, since html and web standards are designed to be open. Not to mention that all these copy protection 'features' run client side, some of them using up student's system resources (which may be scarce), further exacerbating the digital divide between affluent and poor students.

But if you have a question bank and generate tests on the fly, no student ever sees all of your questions (if you have alot of questions, no student ever sees even many of your questions). So they can copy all they want, share with their friends, they memorize the questions, and then get a test with all different ones, and fail.

A few experiences like this, and most students will simply learn the material. Imagine if you had 1000 total questions for a 50 question test. A student might try to assemble all those questions in a text file (or as jpegs if you've stopped him/her from right clicking), and memorize them all, but for most students that is going to be an impossible task. That's handling copy protection via social engineering.

If you really want to get into a arms race, you are better off choosing a platform that supports copy protection as a design, such as streaming video (as a quicktime text track, for instance) some other web plug-in format, or a disk based system like authorware, than trying to implement this in html.

In reply to Michael Penney

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Timothy Takemoto -

Michael Penny,

I am really surprised by your line of arguement.


I presume that you make quiz questions, don't you? Assuming that you do, then you are clearly a in a different league to I. As someone  mentioned above, a question a day is a pleasurable rate. But lets say I made that 10 a day, putting myself in the unpleasantly hardworking league. Then I would have enough questions for 3 or 4 50 question tests, by your reconning, at then end of the first year. I think that my tests could be a mere 10 questions long so lets say I can make 30 tests a year allowing time off at weekends and bank holidays.

Since I use moodle quizes to encourage practice (evalu-practice), rather than with the objective of setting a grade, I would like to have enough tests so that my students do one a day on weekdays during term time. So I need 5 tests a weak or about 300 tests a year. Hence it will take me about 10 years of unpleasantly hard work to get to a level where I need not worry about copying much for one of my courses.  

This is a lot of work. I know you know because you are doing it to but we are talking about hours and hours of grind over the course of years.

If students can wipe their mouse accross the screen and print out the screen then I weep. If they press print screen then I weep. And no wonder when you think about the sort of work that is involved. Preventing these actions should be one of the first functions added to the quiz module. 

And thankfullly they can be prevented. The above theme does a GOOD job of preventing copying.

Yes I agree there is no fighting digital cameras but I enclose a picture taken by my national panasonic, fairly state of the art mobile phone. Taking pictures of tests using a mobile phone introduces a stress factor that most students will not bother with. My tears are, to a large extent saved.

Tim

Attachment 20030823_1754_000.jpg
In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Timothy Takemoto -

Dear Rob Butner,
I have just found out that the wonderful anti-copying javascript that you provide does not work with Opera Browsers. One can still use the right click and cut and paste.
Do you have any ideas (other than poking out student's eyes?)

Tim

In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Todd Anderson -
Hi Prof. Takemoto, thank you very much for your help in this subject.

One thing, I believe your code is missing a second ')' to close the if statement. corrected the code is this:


<?php
if (stristr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']."X", "attempt.phpX") || stristr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']."X", "review.phpX") )
{ include("blockit.html"); }

?>
In reply to Todd Anderson

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Timothy Takemoto -

Dear Todd,
I am glad to have been of use.
Please do post the corrected codesmile
Timothy

In reply to Timothy Takemoto

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy? -- How can I secure the lesson module too?

by Theodore Tzidamis -

Prof. Takemoto,

I know this post is really old but it has still come to much use to me. I tried to embed the code in a 1.8.3 edition and everything worked fine. By the way, since someone else has already mentioned it, you have indeed missed a parenthesis at the end of the if clause. The corrected code is this:

<?php
        //secure quiz module
        if(stristr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']."X", "attempt.phpX") || stristr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']."X", "review.phpX"))
        {
                include("blockit.html");
        }
?>

However, my initial goal was other than securing the quiz module. I want to secure the lesson module. When I try to modify the code as follows...

<?php
        //secure quiz module
        if(stristr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']."X", "attempt.phpX") || stristr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']."X", "review.phpX"))
        {
                include("blockit.html");
        }

        //secure lesson module
        if(stristr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']."X", "lesson.phpX"))
        {
                include("blockit.html");
        }
?>

...nothing happens; you can right-click in any lesson.

I have "some" experience on php and javascript; enough, that is, to basically understand what the code does. However, I feel I am doing something terribly wrong.

If you or any other moodle user could enlighten me on the matter, I would be really grateful. For the time being, all I can think about is wheather the "lesson.php" file is the one I should protect.

Best regards,

Theodore.

In reply to Theodore Tzidamis

Lesson module secured. No copy-paste, no printscreen, etc.

by Theodore Tzidamis -

For anyone it may concern, the view.php file is the one we are looking for, should we want to secure the lesson module as well.

Another point of interest is that you need to get rid of a <center> statement in the header.html file since lesson pages get center aligned when you include it. Other than that, all is well.

Once more, thanks to everyone for the great advice. I hope someone gets all the help he needs from this, as I did.

Cheers,

Theodore.

In reply to Theodore Tzidamis

Re: Lesson module secured. No copy-paste, no printscreen, etc.

by Timothy Takemoto -

Dear Theodore

I am sorry I missed your post.

So the code to secure the lesson module becomes the following?

<?php
        //secure quiz module
        if(stristr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']."X", "attempt.phpX") || stristr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']."X", "review.phpX"))
        {
                include("blockit.html");
        }

        //secure lesson module
        if(stristr($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']."X", "lesson/view.phpX"))
        {
                include("blockit.html");
        }
?>

Thank you very much for your correction.

Tim

In reply to Barbara Lockwood

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Brian Koontz -

Your energy would be more wisely spent by researching alternative testing methods (short answer rather than MC, for instance), or by designing tests that can be easily modified in minor ways to thwart cheaters, or by controlling the test environment.  Your search for a solution that will work on all browsers, under all conditions, is wasted energy:  Anything that can be displayed can be copied, and any scheme that you come up with is simply a temporary fix.  (It's a lot like the DRM issue with recorded information: Anything that can be transformed to analog can be copied, period.  No amount of encryption will be able to stop the copying of analog streams.  The same theory applies here.) There isn't a proprietary CMS out there that can prevent screen copies or dumps (unless they are using a proprietary viewing system).  Anyone that says otherwise is simply feeding you a line of sales BS.

Careful up-front design of your tests can pay off in the end, especially if you design them in such a way that minor changes can be made quickly and easily.  You didn't mention what subjects you were offering on-line, but math and computer science courses are the easiest:  Create a test template in GIFT format, then develop a small script that will insert random changes to numeric problems or coding examples.  Selecting from a random pool of questions, as mentioned previously, is also a valid way to address the problem.

The one thing I'd ask, though, is this:  Why should tests be a surprise? It seems to me that if instructors are depending upon the element of surprise to test mastery of a subject, they aren't very confident in their abilities to teach the students what they need to know.  Testing might be a necessary evil, but sometimes teachers lose sight of what testing is all about.

Of course, if you're dealing with PHB's, they won't understand any of the concepts previously mentioned, in which case you probably should just find a proprietary solution with a slick sales brochure that makes claims that will appease the boss.

  --Brian

In reply to Brian Koontz

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Timothy Takemoto -

Dear Brian

I know this thread is old but it is being discussed where I am and every techological knowledgable person seems to say the same as Brian. But I still cannot understand why!!!

I am well in favour of alternatives. I don't see how short answer helps but the new "copy question" feature in moodle 1.5 allowing teachers to make copies of questions, for more variation, is great.

I am teaching English online. It is difficult, but not impossible to create a script to randomise questions. I would really like this. I would sort of mark the parts of speach and the computer would come up with variations. Or perhaps variations from a corpus. Or perhaps we could all share questions. Yeah. Yes please.

I am all for the question variation approach. I spend hours and hours and hours making questions, and attempting to get others to help.

I think that when a student has to use a screen capture program or a camera then it makes it more difficult and tiresome to copy. I think that a lot of my students do not have high resolution cameras. The vast majority do NOT know about or how to use screen capture software. (They cannot even enter a URL into the browser. )

Even as it stands, the copy protection mechanism works fairly well. It was not all that difficult. A Flash front end would be better. Ideally a full screen window, with various key press prevention making it more difficult to get the screen capture software to fire. Big deal. No big deal at all. But why the hell not?  

What I cannot understand about this debate is the
1) Is is impossible in the end, so why try, why do anything?
line of argument.

I teach English.
2) It is impossible to speak English like a native, so why bother to learn?
Answer: because the little you can learn can be used, and can get you part of the way there, make some happiness, prevent some pain.

We all die
2) It is impossible to live forever, so why bother taking care of our health?
Answer: Becuase the little or a lot that we do achieve can get us part of the way there, make us live a little longer, happier, preventing some pain.

3) Coping is impossible to prevent, so why put effort into preventing it?
Answer: Because the little that we can achieve can get us part of the way there, prevent a lot of the copying, and make the learning process happier, and prevent student and teacher pain.

My guess is that for Brian and others it would be all to easy to get around. It is NOT all to easy for my students to get around, a lot of them can not. That means that there are a lot fewer brain dumps going on. Fewer is better. Yeah.

Timothy

In reply to Barbara Lockwood

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by Jonathan Moore -
I am in full agreement with the many posts in this thread regarding the challenge (impossibility) of fully locking this down using unsecured remote computers.

The additional challenge even in a semi controlled environment is to do even a reasonable job of locking down a quiz given in a browser you would have to be able to do things from your web application that would in the hands of a malicious attacker allow denial of service attacks such as prevent access to the windows key, task switching, screen captures, etc. This all sounds great as a feature for good, but think of the mayhem that could be accomplished if this were possible.

It so happens there is a product for doing this sort of thing if you are working in a controlled environment. Its called Respondus Lockdown Browser. They currently have integrations with some of the popular commercial LMSes. I have contacted them about trying to do a Moodle integration and they say they have an SDK in the works that would facilitate an integration.

Agian in a controlled setting, I am curious if a good desktop admin might be able to emulate some of the features. In prior versions of windows you could specify a third party "shell" environment. I believe there used to be an admin trick of setting an application to be the "shell" in effect locking out all the standard GUI functions except what was in the program. Might be able to make firefox (suggesting FF because IE may have too many tie ins to the OS and extra features that might then unsecure the environment) the shell for a designated "testing" user and prevent a lot of issues. I still think with camera phones, and mobile web browsing, etc that a secure high stake test has to be protocted and the takers closely monitored.

In reply to Jonathan Moore

Re: Urgent Help Needed: How can you secure quiz questions from copy?

by James Bossert -
Has there been any update to this? Can you use the Respondus Lockdown Browser with Moodle?

Thanks! smile