New measures to curb cheating in correspondence courses

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New measures to curb cheating in correspondence courses
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Feb 20, 2008 21:24:59 EST

The Army soon will roll out measures aimed at cracking down on rampant cheating in correspondence courses enlisted soldiers take to gain promotion points.

By May the Army will begin introducing what it hopes will be air-tight testing procedures for the 1,186 online correspondence courses.

The fact that soldiers seeking promotion to sergeant and staff sergeant were blatantly cheating by sharing test answers, primarily through Web sites and compact discs, long had been an open secret within the Army. But, after recent media reports exposing such practices, Training and Doctrine Command commander Gen. William S. Wallace directed a review of the Army Correspondence Course Program. The six-week review confirmed the ongoing cheating and led to the new reforms.

New guidelines will include controls that restrict access to test answers by limiting the number of questions available at once and making those random. Courses will also have more stringent user identification requirements, and soldiers will be limited to how many times they can take a test within a certain period of time.

Wallace was briefed on the review findings Jan. 25 and accepted all of the recommendations made by a 12-person TRADOC team.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/02/army_cheaters_080220w/