How can I deal with claims of technical difficulties for an online exam?
Unless we somehow want students' grades to reflect the quality of their home Internet connection, the quality of their hardware, and their tech savvy (or their families'), there is not a sane alternative but to take seriously essentially all claims of technical problems. No, it it not really possible to &quot;prove&quot; technical problems, nor is it reasonable to try to insist that people with technical limitations be astute enough to document the tech problems!
Yes, from a traditional enforcement-oriented viewpoint this is &quot;impossible&quot;. Yes, indeed, so, manifestly, that traditional adversarial viewpoint is not really (meaningfully) sustainable in plague times. So, indeed, what instead? Very context/culture -dependent, to begin with. Are classes gauntlets to be run [meaning adversarial situations in which one proves virtue by survival]? Or do we want classes to be fundamentally educational opportunities, and helpful to the students [as opposed to skeptical and adversarial]? In plague times, at least, what are viable (and useful) goals?