ET 61 History of Animation SMC Online Quiz Tampering

In our previous blog article, "SMC's Deliberate and Deceitful Public Records Non-Compliance," we discussed how Santa Monica College concealed public records pertaining to Professor Jim Keeshen's Fall 2005 ET 61 online History of Animation course. ET stands for Entertainment Technology and refers to courses taught at SMC's Academy of Entertainment and Technology (AET). Let's see what else was going on in this AET online course during this same semester.

Part of the requirements of the ET 61 course was a quiz, which was to be taken online. The student was allegedly allowed to only take the quiz once. The quiz was only supposed to be open for one week. Each quiz governed material for a specific unit. Since the online course was 8 weeks long, there were 8 units total in the course. The last week did not contain a quiz while the seventh week had two quizzes. The quizzes usually consisted of ten questions.

Here's a screenshot from Professor Keeshen's announcements discussing the quizzes. For convenience sake, I have made yet another handy chart. Compare this with the related chart for the ET 61 CD-ROM information from the same course. Now, let's see what really happened with the quizzes.

As mentioned previously, Steve Drury was a student enrolled in this ET 61 History of Animation course for Fall 2005. Drury finished the course with the grade of "A." Not only did he email Professor Keeshen about the problems he encountered with the CD-ROM hyperlinks, he wrote Keeshen about the problems he had with the first quiz. Specifically, Keeshen had inadvertently provided the answers to the multiple-choice quiz questions by bolding them. Here's Drury's September 1, 2005 email to Professor Keeshen:

Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 23:23:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: "STEVE DRURY"
Subject: Bold Type in Quiz 1 (Section 2075)
To: anihist@yahoo.com

Dear Mr. Keeshen:

I just sent you an email from inside the class. I don't think it went through, so I'm sending it from my regular email.

I really enjoyed the lecture and the information in the links. I don't want to be the "snitch of the class" or the most critical student. However, when I took the quiz this evening, I couldn't help but notice that the correct answers were in BOLD FACE TYPE. I hope someone hasn't tampered with the quiz? Just in case, I wanted to let you know.

Best wishes,
Steve Drury
History of Animation Online
Section 2075

About two days later, Professor Keeshen responded as follows:

Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2005 09:30:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: "James Keeshen" anihist@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: Bold Type in Quiz 1 (Section 2075)

Steve,

Thanks for the heads-up on the quiz. Will look into it.

Jim Keeshen

I can confirm that these are in fact the answers to the ET 61 Unit 1 quiz, as this was a quiz I wrote for the course when I was a teaching assistant for Professor Keeshen. Here's a screenshot we made showing the correct answers for the quiz in bold face type. Did Keeshen in fact fix this problem? We don't know as he never posted an announcement about it nor did he further respond to Drury's email. The only email he sent was on September 9, 2005. In this email, Keeshen informed all his students that he had finished the grading for the Unit 1 quizzes and threaded discussions. Here's a copy of Keeshen's email:

From: anihist@yahoo.com
CC: anihist@yahoo.com
Subject: ET 61 Animation Grades for Unit 1
Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2005 13:16:11 -0600

Dear Avid Animation Aficionados,

The grading has been done for Unit 1. Take a look and see if I missed anything.

The quiz is worth 10 points and the Threads worth 30 points.

I took off points from the Threads if you did not answer all the question asked in the Threads, or if you did not reply to the questions I placed in the Lecture. (Just want to see if you are actually reading the lecture.)

In future Threads I will dock you a few points if you do not input by the deadline. It is important that you do the Threads even if you are going to be late, for it is better to get some points than to get a "0".

The Webliography is one source of getting extra points and I have one other way.

If you find any typos, misspelled words or bad grammar in any of the text, please bring it to my attention. It will be worth a few points of extra credit as a reward.

OK, we will soon be going on to Unit 3 and after that we will be half way done with this course!! I told you it goes by fast.

Jim Keeshen

Keep in mind that the grading for the Unit 1 quiz was done by September 9, 2005. Keeshen also discusses the importance of meeting deadlines in the course. So, students who did not bother to take the quiz should have received a "zero." However, Keeshen didn't fail these students, he broke his own policies and re-opened the quizzes. But these quizzes weren't re-opened to all students as another chance to take the quiz, but to those who didn't bother to meet the deadline.

Did Drury ever get another chance to take the quiz? Of course not. But then again, thanks to Keeshen providing bold quiz answers, Drury received a perfect 10/10 on the quiz. Here's the screenshot we made showing that the quiz was re-opened until October 9, 2005.

Now, this quiz is extended for another month after Keeshen graded the quiz. Keep in mind this is only an eight-week course. Notice that the screenshot states that Drury has already taken the quiz. So, the extension was not to provide another quiz, without answers, but to reward tardy students. Was this fair to students such as Drury who took the quiz within the original deadline? Of course it wasn't. It set one set of standards for prompt students and another for the negligent students.

Was this enough motivation for those who failed to take the quiz the first time? It seems not, as Keeshen re-opened the quiz two more times! Here's the two screenshots we made. Now a problem with re-opening quizzes is that it temporarily erases the student's quiz grade in the online gradebook, so that students are unable to monitor their progress. Given the fact that the Unit 1 quiz was extended until October 19, 2005, that was almost the entire course length in which the students couldn't calculate their current grade to date.

Also, notice that in the final quiz extension, the deadline to finish the quiz was October 19, 2005. Yet, the students could review the gradebook on October 18, 2005, a day prior. What does this mean? Simply put, that if two students wished to cheat on the quiz, one could go into the gradebook, view the quiz with the correct answers and provide these answers to another student. This fatal error is conducive to fostering an environment of cheating in the course. Additionally, by extending these online quizzes, it allowed students to get away with not following deadlines. If anything, this did not foster a mutually respectful or objective learning environment for all students involved.

What about the other quizzes in the ET 61 online course? Of course Keeshen re-opened those quizzes as well. Here's a screenshot from the Unit 2 quiz, showing that the students had over a month to finish this quiz. Compare this with the statement underneath the quiz extension, which explicitly states: "You have 1 week to take the Quiz from this Unit." Of course Drury, as usual, took his quiz within the one week mandated limit. So, if the student had only one week to take the quiz, why were they later given an additional month? Why are the students told that they have one hour to complete the quiz and then two hours? Which was it?

Here's the screenshots from the Unit 3 and Unit 4 quizzes showing the extensions. Unit 5 follows the pattern established by Unit 1 in which Professor Keeshen opened the quiz three times. Here's the screenshot for the first extension. Here's the screenshots for the remaining extensions. Notice that in the blue rectangle, the Unit 5 quiz is erroneously referred to a Quiz 4.

For Unit 6, the quiz was again re-opened. We've provided two screenshots for comparison. The first screenshot shows the original quiz information when Drury took the quiz. Notice that the student is told that he or she has one week to take the quiz. The deadline is given as October 9, 2005. However, Professor Keeshen once again re-opened the quiz, extending it for another week.

The two Unit 7 quizzes took an interesting turn. Keeshen only re-opened the first quiz for two additional days. However, the gradebook parameters were not programmed properly and the quiz would give the student no points, even if that student received a perfect score! Drury emailed Keeshen about this problem. He wrote: "I noticed there are two quizzes in Unit 7. I took the top one. When I was done with the quiz, it told me I had 10 answers correct, but it gave me a 0/0 under points received. What happened? Please let me know, thank you." Keeshen responded back on or about October 13, 2005 with the following: "Don't know. You got 10 for the first quiz. JK". As a teaching assistant, I used to program the points into the quizzes and gradebook. This is not a computer error, but a human one. Simply put, Keeshen didn't bother to add the points for the quizzes before opening them to the students.

As to the second Unit 7 quiz, Keeshen automatically gave the students more than one week to take the quiz. However, he went in and opened the gradebook three days before the quiz was to end. Again, this would provide an open window for students to cheat on their quizzes as we discussed above. Here's the two screenshots showing the original quiz instructions and the modified ones with the retroactive gradebook date.

Why were some students allowed an extension and others were not? Why didn't the students who failed to take the quizzes in the original deadlines receive a failing grade? Again, we allege that this created one set of standards for some students and other set for others. But you really can't blame the students, as Professor Keeshen was the one who established this practice. Is it little wonder he's no longer allowed to teach this course at SMC?

Technology is not an end-all cure for education. Nor is distance education the golden opportunity for everyone to attend college. The technology is only as good as those who understand it. Even in the traditional classroom setting, the course experience is only as good as the instructor behind it. First and foremost, there must be commitment by the professor. The students' needs for a fair and impartial learning environment for all must be honored. Without that essential ingredient, all the technology in the world can't buy us an education.

-- Des Manttari,
Editor-in-Chief,
Phoenix Genesis

(c) 2006: Phoenix Genesis/MBS LP

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