Academia has celebrated, over the years, the Mirror Test (and, unrelated but equally colorful, the Marshmallow Test). Now comes Turkish Test-Mirror Testing, which virtually enhances confidence, to some degree, that students taking tests virtually are genuinely being tested on their own merits and so will be justifiably able to be passed onward by the university in their journeys toward some day receiving an academic degree. TRT World reports:
A Turkish university sends every student a mirror to cheat-proof exams
The prestigious Bilkent University in Ankara has decided that in order to ensure high standards and to prevent cheating on at-home exams, a mid-size mirror was necessary for each candidate….
“It turns out we are not the first to do this,” Chancellor Abdullah Atalar tells TRT World. He gives the example of Google job interviews as another venue for mirrors such as the ones they had produced.
“We are trying to secure the online exams for all of our students, by making sure that they only have the questions on their screen, and nothing else,” Atalar adds. “It’s not because we think our students cheat.”
“This is just one of the precautions we take,” Atalar says. “The students do not touch the keyboard or the mouse, we see their hands. They write their answers in their own handwriting and then scan their answers and send them to us so they can be graded by their instructors.”
