Christina Domenico | Finals on your lap

I always pity the professor or TA grading my blue-book exams. My handwriting gradually deteriorates to a foreign alphabet by the last page, and cross-outs overwhelm my intelligent reasoning and argumentation.

Then there's the lack of flexibility to change an answer I wrote 50 minutes earlier. I cross my fingers and pray the red pen will have mercy on my grade.

If only there were a better way to sit for an essay or short-answer exam. We've evolved from a pen-and-paper society to a keyboard-and-monitor world. No student would ever conceive of writing a term paper by hand. We move blocks of text around, making small edits to clarify our meaning in take-home assignments. Our tests, naturally, should follow suit.

Enter Securexam, a program for administering tests traditionally written in blue books via a student's own laptop. Inside Higher Ed profiled the software last month, saying that it was only a matter of time before colleges embrace the technology. Securexam acts like a simple word processor for test-takers, but it doesn't end there - the software also blocks access to other programs on a computer, preventing students from taking a peek at Wikipedia when they can't remember the countries that form NAFTA. The software also saves a student's work every 60 seconds to prevent file loss in the case of a computer crash.

Penn has already begun exploring new technology initiatives this year like Study.Net - the online-bulkpack pilot program that a few lucky Wharton classes are participating in this fall. And a test-taking platform like Securexam could be the next great experiment.

To find out about current technology issues, I turned to College and Wharton senior Wilson Tong, chairman of the Undergraduate Assembly. He told me that "Penn is right now trying to ramp up its technology infrastructure."

From ongoing changes to PennPortal and PennInTouch to a planned University-wide calendar, students will see great improvements in the future. In the spirit of such innovation, why not explore options to facilitate midterms and finals as well? In fact, the Law School uses a similar program. Dean of Students Gary Clinton wrote in an e-mail that "the Law School uses a system called ExamSoft, which has many benefits and very few downsides (other than its cost). I think the vast majority of students, faculty and staff find it a tremendous benefit in our exam system."

The benefits of Securexam would also work in favor of professors, TAs and students alike. Students can more easily formulate and organize essay responses, better demonstrating their command of a class's material. And TAs and professors don't have to decipher the lines of muddled penmanship and scribbles. Laptops already invade Penn classrooms for note-taking, indicating that many students prefer to record their notes digitally (or that they can't read their own handwriting).

But as Tong observed, the program introduces many issues that need addressing, such as accessibility and cheating. "Not every student has a laptop," he said. "They might have a desktop or not move their laptop around a lot."

Non-computer options would have to exist for these students, or a laptop-borrowing program similar to that offered at Van Pelt could help increase access across the entire student body. As for cheating, the Securexam program works around the possibility of a student saving helpful information elsewhere on their computer by locking down all other programs during exam time. Don't even think about clicking "Start" on your PC - until you finish your exam, that is. Right-clicking, double-clicking and other means of navigation also shut down to prevent dishonest test-taking.

All questions aside, a test-taking program like Securexam could alleviate hand cramps and test-taking fatigue.

Tong saw more benefits from taking tests on a computer: "I think for straight essay exams and exams where there's not much computation, the program makes a lot of sense. If they allowed you to use specific software that's compatible, then that could come in handy for some professors who want students to use Excel."

As we continue to add to the list of tasks we complete electronically, the time will eventually arrive when test-taking on a computer is the norm - and that time could be sooner than you think if the University is willing to explore the options.

Christina Domenico is a College senior from North Wildwood, N.J. Her e-mail is domenico@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Undersized Undergrad appears on Wednesdays.

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