this post was submitted on 26 May 2024
491 points (96.8% liked)

Technology

59578 readers
2917 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Sorry for the Danish post i hope you can translate it.

The Ministry warns that Microsoft programs can create problems for written exams for students with Mac computers.

Users who have updated the programs to the latest version may experience the programs running slowly, freezing and crashing. This means that the examinees are delayed in their work and that parts of the answers risk being lost, write the Agency for Education and Quality and the Agency for IT and Learning in a notice to schools.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 170 points 6 months ago (22 children)

I know it sounds crazy, but a better free alternative exists.

[–] Decq@lemmy.world 99 points 6 months ago (7 children)

It sounds insane to me they would use a suite where they have no control over its state.. Can't they at least block the updates? Just imagine you're a student and your success depends on the incompetence of others

[–] tordenflesk@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I would imagine they have a similar setup as here in Norway (who's also experiencing this issue) where the students own the machine and they aren't centrally managed, especially the Mac's

[–] Decq@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I assumed they would be centrally managed, but they are not apparently. So then I don't really see why they would get a time extension to be honest. You could easily game that then and just fake it crashing.

[–] GojuRyu@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

A single person experiencing an error is bad luck and may go through an apeals process. Half a class experiencing the same error jeopardizes the legitimacy of the exam for enough students that they decided to handle it collectively. It may be a third party tool but it is one they are expected to use which changes things. Had it been a few students using libre office they would probably be out of luck as they would have used non standard software.

Another important note is that many exams now require digitally handing in the assignment, so the only alternative to writing the assignment in a text editor would likely have been to scan a handwritten one and convert it to pdf, if that was even allowed. So while particular hardware and software isn’t required, the limitations of the exam makes it impossible to completly avoid errors such as these.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (18 replies)