Investigation into possible plagiarism

Indeed. What happens if you write "in core reading, cannot recall exact location"? Or perhaps a catch all statement at the top of your script that all knowledge you are sharing in your script is derived from core reading and acted notes & tutorials only.

 

I think a generic statement such as the one you mentioned makes sense. Maybe we need to play their own game with them.

 

I appreciate I'm not adding any constructive advice for students here. I thought I would comment not the situation though: It seems to me what we have is a distinct lack of common sense from the IFoA.

If it were me I'd say let people use their notes, let people use google, let people use whatever. Let 'em go nuts. Collaborating with other students at the time of the exam is clearly a huge no-no as the purpose of the exam is to assess individuals not groups, but otherwise let people use whichever resources they see fit.
If the answers to exam questions are readily at hand in the core reading, from a quick google, or in past papers, I'm not sure this says much to the quality of the questions. Indeed, if we could replace qualified actuaries with some reference material and google it seems like a bit of a pointless qualification.

I think the onus should be on setting high quality examinations and exam questions rather than lazily asking students to trot out some lines from past papers or the core reading. It's only because poor questions such as these are being asked that this weird take on plagiarism arises at all. If students weren't asked these trite questions they wouldn't give trite responses that seem to be causing issues for both the IFoA and students.

I'd really appreciate any counter points to the above, both to make me think again and to help me flesh out my thoughts.

 

Let's try and keep things on topic and make pragmatic, helpful actions.

 

I think you make a number of really good points. I don't think that purely being able to trot out core reading with no understanding would meet the fitness to proceed as an actuary - and it's right that it shouldn't.

The emphasis of the exams should be on applying the concepts to specific scenarios. I think pure bookwork questions made up a fairly small % of the overall marks - particularly for later subjects, perhaps this will reduce even further now that the exams are open book.

I think students tend to find application questions more challenging than pure bookwork so it has to be a careful transition out of fairness.

 

I think your second sentence implies some sort of malice on behalf of the institute. Whilst it may be getting harder and harder to believe following their actions in the past 12 months or so, I think their blunders are a result of gross incompetence rather than a desire to purposely distress students. I certainly hope so anyway!

Really good post CapitalActuary, some great points raised. I can understand it must be difficult for the examiners to adapt the exams from how they've been for many years. Based on, for example, the 2020 SP7 pass rates, I would suggest they've not yet found the balance.

 

No one has of course argued such a thing but there we go. It's more that many who qualified previously passed exams that others didn't because they were better at recalling bookwork. IFoA now have worst of both worlds still the bookwork but risk of plagiarism if you answer it too similar to what you were taught, what a joke.

 

Don't want to open up a huge argument on this, but can someone just clarify one thing for me - the copy/paste functionality - is that a yes or no - and how do they know?

I say this based on their latest guidance - if you take something from the internet you have the give the URL - it's not usually practical to type out a URL as very easy to make a mistake - so that only leaves copying and pasting - which i was under the impression is not allowed?

Has anyone got done for copy/pasting answers in the exam - some students have told me that they have literally copy/pasted answers from their notes to the exam and nothing has been said. I think it's an extremely unfair system if some students are doing this and saving themselves 10/15 mins which can be used elsewhere in the exam - while others are typing out definitions etc.

The IFoA if they wanted to could set up an online invigilator system - there are multiple software providers - but you have got to assume the cost is something they don't want to bear, so instead we are stuck in the limbo system where all sorts of cheating can happen and nothing is being done about it - other than against the actuaries code and ethically not right - there is nothing stopping a group of students sitting the same exam in the same room and splitting questions out between them - especially for the more math based exams.

Some may say it's not their own work etc, but how many time's in work do you re-invent the wheel with communications or materials - 90% of the time i would guess that you will be copy/pasting material and language that has been used before.

 

I agree with what CapitalActuary has said. I've been saying for years in Council that exams should be moved to open book: in practice over 95% of actuarial (and I would say most business work, with the obvious exception of research) is not a memory test, but relies on "what have we done before that we can reuse and adapt as needed for this problem).

Even if the IFoA were to insist that everything be done from memory (as Microsoft does with some of its Professional exams) it could still be done as follows (and this would also work with open book exams to prevent any collaboration with others):

I sat a Microsoft Professional exam a couple of months ago, and that cost about £113 and was 2.5 hours online. It was proctored (i.e. Microsoft paid for someone to watch me [possibly for the whole time] on my video camera, and with very strict rules: in a closed room, with no one else there, no extraneous sounds (so I took it at midnight). I had to signin 30 minutes beforehand, show photoID (passport or driving license), take pictures in front, to each side, and behind the desk.
I was only allowed to use one monitor, and only allowed to have one window open on the pc: the PearsonVue exam site that Microsoft were using for the exam.

My face had to be within the webcam frame at all times, I was not allowed to cover my mouth (something that took a bit of getting used t-, as when I am thinking I often put my hand on my chin/lips, presumably to stop me talking to anyone outside the room to get any help). The questions were a mixture of multiple choice and drag and drop of code. No screenshotting was allowed (so no possibility of taking a record of the questions asked and my answers, presumably to stop people sharing their answers with others).

There was no freeform writing (and obviously no handwritten/scanned stuff), but the IFoA could adapt the above to allow some freeform text boxes. To pass you needed a mark of 70%. I found the exam very tough and actually thought I had failed, because there were several questions which were not covered by the course materials, or else which I found slightly ambiguous, and mainly because I am no longer used to working this way (entirely from memory, and making sure I kept my face within the webcam frame when normally I move about/stretch when thinking) and because of an eye problem sustained earlier in the year (detached retina leading to significantly reduced visibility in one eye). As a result, I had no time to go back to check my answers. (So don't let anyone tell you that multiple choice exams are easy - they can be, but well structured multiple choice exams can be a really good test. Also, just an indication that the IFoA is not the only organisation whose exams can be frustrating . Fortunately I passed (informed immediately after clicking the "Submit" button - another advantage of multiple choice exams - clearly this can't apply to IFoA exams with freeform answers being required.

I don't think the proctors need any specialised skills, they just need to be paid to be vigilant for the exam duration (2-3 hours). They could be paid say £15 per hour to do this. The cost (say £45) would be saved by reduced plagiarism software costs (how high are there? to live up to its Member Pledge to be transparent the IFoA should disclose these and other exam costs) and by IFoA staff not having to trawl through dozens (hundreds/thousands?) of scripts.

So I think such a proctored system could be introduced in due course by the IFoA, and the proctor could allow candidates to copy and paste from their notes or other materials: I know the IFoA guidance on this seems to disallow this, but in future personally I don't see anything wrong with copying definitions verbatim. After all that is what an actuary would do in a report to clients. They wouldn't reinvent the wheel as this a) wastes time (how could it be ethical for the client/employer to have to pay for that?) and b) introduces the risk that the revised wording is not as good as the one that experts have presumably spent long hours deliberating over. Similarly, if you're going to quote legislation, you want to quote it verbatim, and not mislead the client/employer by paraphrasing it and possibly getting it wrong.

I think a large part of being a good professional (in any profession, not just actuarial) is having a good store of knowledge of previous work (and this was something I learnt very early on in the excellent training I received at what is now Willis Towers Watson, but was then R Watson & Sons): what have we done before in a similar situation that we can learn from? Is there a previous set of instructions/report/draft that we can reuse and adapt appropriately? Yes, of course you try and think outside the box/sometimes try "blue sky thinking" to see if there is a completely different approach that might be better/think of improvements to the previous process, but I would say that at least 75% of professional work starts with "what do we already know that we can reuse and adapt".

So knowing where in one's notes, or in the textbooks/coursework, a significant part of the answer is, is a significant professional skill for an actuary, and I really don't think the IFoA exams should penalise people for this.

In my view, the exams should be adapted as much as possible to test the skills actuaries need in their work. Rote memorisation is not a very significant part of these at all.

 

I do get what the Handbook states, however knowing students have copied and paste from their own notes is the issue - it's clearly not been police in any sort of consistent manner if at all. They say they have software to detect plagiarism, but do they have software to detect copy/paste - clearly not as those students would have been caught.

The money spent on plagiarism software would have been better spent on using external invigilator system - There are many systems out there - that would dramatically reduce the ability to cheat in the exam.

 

How do IFoA online prices compare?

 

There is another issue. "You are strictly prohibited from copying and pasting, or re-typing content, word for word, from any source or multiple sources." was originally a quote from the Assessment Regulations. Its inclusion in the Exam Handbook was for clarification purposes. However, the original quote has now been removed from the Assessment Regulations.

I would act as if it still applied as it is safer but the lack of clarity is poor.

 

How does it work on University courses then, do they have to worry about all this similarly?

 

Any word from the Institute re the new rules?

 

If we can't get a reply, can a Tutor give an example of how not to paraphrase please?

 

Previously we were led to believe that Acted and IFoA are independent companies.

If this still holds, how would the IFoA know if one plagiarism using the acted notes, Do the IFoA has access to all acted material for all set of exams?

 

I think this is a difficult area. Given the IFoA's hidden changes to the disciplinary costs policy made last May, under which they say they will ask for all costs to be repaid by the member if misconduct is found at Disciplinary Tribunal Panel stage, which given recent cases is likely to be tens of thousands of pounds, tutors giving examples of "how to paraphrase" that the IFoA happen to disagree with (possibly retrospectively) might be exposing themselves (or acted) to tens of thousands of pounds of liability if a student follows an example but is nevertheless found guilty of "plagiarism".

In my opinion, this is a very unsatisfactory situation that the IFoA are putting students into, and it is also putting Acted tutors (or anyone else giving advice to students, e.g. friends at their employers) in a difficult position.

In my view, the disciplinary costs change is just plain wrong (because neither members nor Council were consulted, or even informed about it, and - as I've said before on my blog - it breaks the contract between members and the IFoA). The plagiarism confusion should also not be happening, given that the IFoA has had months to prepare for this since the previous experience in April and September 2020.
I've called on Twitter for IFoA Council to step in and sort out the mess the IFoA seems to have got itself into.

 

Indeed it's no longer "please advise me how to maximise marks" but "please advise me how not to find myself in IFoA disciplinary"... so tutors have become almost lawyers.

 

Is this explanation correct? It was understood that IFoA owned the rights to core reading and acted had to pay to use this, then the non-core reading was Acted's? Please clarify. Clearly the arrangement has more relevance now.