Exam Groups

THIS PAGE IS BEING PREPARED

Let's make the examination in ReCodEx as secure as possible.

Maintaining a secure environment during coding tests is important for the fairness of grading. Unfortunately, working with ReCodEx gives students several opportunities for cheating which are difficult to detect even if the activity of the students is monitored closely by the teacher.

Illicit scenarios

Security precautions implemented in ReCodEx specifically aim at scenarios where ReCodEx is used as a communication channel that enables ethically questionable behavior. In particular:

• Student A (attending a test) shares apriori ReCodEx credentials with student B. Student B logs into the ReCodEx using the identity of A, reads the test assignment, and submits a solution instead of A. Student A merely pretends some activity in ReCodEx not to raise suspicion.
• Student A uses the comments thread of some abandoned assignment to communicate with student B so that B can render unsanctioned help.
• Student B shares ReCodEx credentials with A who is attending a test. Student A logs under his own identity (to see the assignment) as well as under the identity of B (in a separate anonymous browser tab). A communicates the assignment (e.g., via comments thread) to B, B solves the assignment and submits it as a solution for a different assignment in a different group (receiving 0%, which usually means it will not draw any attention). A downloads the solution of B to the local disk and then submits it as a solution for the test assignment.

To prevent these scenarios, we need to ensure that,

• student A can access ReCodEx only from the PC in the lab,
• and students from labs will not log in to another account.

Assumptions about infrastructure

1. Restrictions are imposed on which IP addresses/websites can be accessed by the users. If the user has access to the entire Internet, he/she may use various channels to communicate with peers that could provide help, or seek the assistance of ChatGPT or similar tools.
2. The student may not use internal shared resources (like shared network drives) which may be accessed by other students (so they can be used to share information).
3. Hosting PCs have unique public (i.e., not one IPv4 NAT-ed gateway) fixed (not changing in time) IP addresses so that we can use IP locks (accepting requests of a user from one address only) and duly log important actions.

ReCodEx security features