Proctors May Be Necessary

I can state with a certainty that I never “gave nor received assistance” or cheated in any other way while at Princeton. However, this does not mean that I have not witnessed others doing it. And, no, I would not report them. In any event, cheating had a limited impact back then, especially since exams were often open book and/or open notes.

However, times have changed. My wife is a teacher at a German school, and while cell phones are banned during tests, people manage to sneak in cell phones, or have someone in the bathroom with those same phones. And quite often a student whose English is atrocious comes up with a composition which is nothing less than perfect. There are sites which detect AI use, but that evidence is not admissible in a German school. The only recourse a teacher has is to ask the student to come for an oral examination.

Thus, there needs to be a way to make sure those things do not happen, or at least make it much more difficult to do so. And, as much as I hate the idea of proctors at a Princeton exam, I see that there now might be a need for it — and also the need for a way to deal with AI use if same has been detected.