UK Accounting Body To Halt Remote Exams Amid AI Cheating

The world's largest accounting body is to stop students being allowed to take exams remotely to crack down on a rise in cheating on tests that underpin professional qualifications. From a report: The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), which has almost 260,000 members, has said that from March it will stop allowing students to take online exams in all but exceptional circumstances. "We're seeing the sophistication of [cheating] systems outpacing what can be put in, [in] terms of safeguards," Helen Brand, the chief executive of the ACCA, said in an interview with the Financial Times.

Remote testing was introduced during the Covid pandemic to allow students to continue to be able to qualify at a time when lockdowns prevented in-person exam assessment. In 2022, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the UK's accounting and auditing industry regulator, said that cheating in professional exams was a "live" issue at Britain's biggest companies. A number of multimillion-dollar fines have been issued to large auditing and accounting companies around the world over cheating scandals in tests.

Video surveliance

[gurps_npc]

Not that hard to require any remote exam to be done with the audio and video up and running so they can see you and hear you while you take the exam.

While it would not 100% defeat cheating, it should at least destroy the ease and convenience of doing it.

Re: Video surveliance

[too2late]

Just go take the test on site. It's not that hard. If a certification is that important to your career you will put in the required effort.

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

Bingo I think we can all admit that no matter ones feelings on remote-work that remote-testing is pretty silly that it was ever considered to work.

Even when I got my A+ cert as a teenager back when grunge was cool still I had to show up at a testing facility.

Re:

[sabbede]

More importantly, this wasn't about saving effort, it was a temporary change to make testing possible during a lockdown that hasn't been in effect for years. So, why the hell was it still available at all? Remote testing should have ended with the pandemic lockdowns.

On-site testing

[unixisc]

Precisely. I took a CompTIA cert 6 months ago. There was only one center in my city, but the alternative - arranging it at home - was too complicated. I went to that center, took the test, passed it and moved on

Re:

[smoot123]

I am shocked, shocked I tell you!, that people are cheating on remote exams when thousands of pounds are on the line.

In further breaking news, water is wet and fire is hot.

Re:

[Bolkar]

Video surveillance is not the solution. PC camera field of view is pretty narrow. I watched YT videos of of people standing near the screen and use their cameras and AI assistants to cheat during online exams. This cheating creates such erosion of ethics in society, I am glad someone noticed and doing something about it.

Re:

[ranton]

I have had testing centers send me cameras in the mail to take a test. This was for an online college, and they sent two cameras. One was meant to be mounted to the monitor and the other was supposed to be behind me but offset to the side a bit. They combined to give a full field of view of my desk and the surrounding room. This is a pretty good solution, and these cameras are quite cheap now. Requiring the user to pay for them so they don't have to come into the testing center isn't asking a lot.

Re:

[unixisc]

Not just that, requiring the users to pay for them might encourage them to take the test on-site, which is what they should be doing in the first place

Re:

[smoot123]

Sora: Create a live video of me taking the exam and feed it to the camera. And Gemini, what's the answer for #2?

The accountant you want

[pierceelevated]

Is the accountant who knows how to game the system

Re:The accountant you want

[ranton]

Is the accountant who knows how to game the system

I want an accountant who knows how to game the tax code. Not one that knows how to game the testing process. Those are two very different things.

Re:

[leonbev]

I'd imagine that millions of people will be getting bad tax advice from LLM's this year. These remote testers are just ahead of the curve!

Re:

[sabbede]

Better luck next time Mr. Carr.

Enter Neuralink

[Ryyuajnin]

What are they do when cyborgs take tests, just punish guys like Tank & Dozer?

If it was about COVID, why were they still...

[sabbede]

...doing it in 2022? Let alone in 2025!! After the pandemic and the associated lockdowns, testing should have gone back to normal. Why did it not? Apathy? Incompetence? Either one would justify replacing the oversight boards.

Re:

[rickb928]

If it worked during COVID, it should work now.

Wait, DID it work during COVID? What, they lied? No.....

Re:

[sabbede]

Worse - even if it had worked, it was a temporary stop-gap that could not work as well as in-person testing. Yet, they kept it going after its reason for being evaporated.

Why?

[PPH]

They're just going to be using the AI to handle your account once they get the job anyway. So isn't this what you should be testing?</sarcasm>