MAY 16,2007-The education community is turning to the tech industry, more specifically radio frequency identification (RFID) and microtexting technologies, to help it beat the exam cheats.

During last year's assessment period there were around 70 reports of documentation being accessed prematurely by unauthorised personnel across the 620,000 bags of exam papers despatched, which is why one of the awarding body's, Edexcel, is turning to IT to help beef up security.

The new measures will be introduced this summer with three key aims: deterring, preventing and detecting examination malpractice.

"Incidents involving stolen papers are extremely rare, but the potential impact is massive. The logistics of re-issuing an alternative paper to schools and colleges around the country and re-training markers on the new paper are complicated, costly and could ultimately be detrimental to candidates," said Jerry Jarvis, Edexcel's managing director.

"We're doing a major trial of new techniques and technologies with the aim of deterring potential thefts, enabling us to better identify the source of a lost or stolen paper, and reducing the threat of fake papers being sold to candidates."

A large number of bags containing examination papers will be equipped with RFID tags, enabling them to be scanned on despatch so that Edexcel's compliance team can easily identify if any papers are missing on receipt.

Similarly, Edexcel is also able to turn technology to its advantage to ensure fairness in the actual exams themselves by detecting anomalies in results for an individual student or group of students.

Nine out of 10 exam scripts are scanned, digitised and marked online by examiners using the ePen system so that results can be cross-referenced with previous performance and any out-of-character achievements flagged in case there is an issue.

SOURCE: http://news.thomasnet.com