Friday, June 13, 2008

Website Encourages Donation of Old Exams

On June 10, Inside Higher Ed reported that representatives of PostYourTest.com, encouraged University of California at San Diego (UCSD) students to donate "used" exams in return for a Starbucks $5 gift card. The website creator aims to make tests available to "level the playing field" according to the article, so everyone and not the privileged few, has access to the information. Professors can add their name to a "ban list" if they prefer not to give universal rights to student donations of their tests. The issues of unauthorized access to testing material and not securing professors' permission to their intellectual property (i.e., test questions) angers faculty members at UCSD. But professors beyond UCSD may feel the same way if the web site creator follows through with his intention to add other schools to his site.

Discussion Questions:
  1. Does a student have the right to give a test to a website so others can use it?
  2. Is it fair to students and professors to post tests online so they can be viewed by anyone?
  3. Should professors rewrite tests every semester so studying old tests online doesn't give an unfair advantage to students who know about the website?

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