prevent students from copying text from quiz question

[k_wullstein]

With AI tool use so common now with students using the quiz tool for objective testing is challenging.  It appears they can copy the text and then put it in an AI tool to get the answer.  They can do this so quickly that reducing the quiz time limit isn't effective.  I use Lock Down Browser, but that may not be enough. 

1) is there a way to prevent students from copying text from a quiz question?  

2) is there a way to hide text in a quiz question that students can't see if they copy the text? For example put the text is the color white.  When I do this and view as a student, the white text shows up when I copy the text. 

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @k_wullstein,

I don't think it's feasible to prevent students from copying text out of the browser from a technical perspective, as the world wide web just wasn't designed with that kind of thing in mind.  I'm sure there are some solutions that could be deployed, but they might end up doing more harm than good.  Continuing that line of thought, AI is being built in to many browsers, which means the AI could see the underlying webpage code and get the text directly from there anyways, so locking students out of copy/paste wouldn't really address the root problem.

Similarly, while I understand the idea of "hiding" some text, it'll probably end up with more technical challenges than it seems on the surface.  You'd need to make sure that whatever you do was also hidden from screen-readers, as you wouldn't want to negatively impact students with a disability who need assistive software like that.  You'd also have to take dark-mode into account...  While it's only available officially in the Canvas app right now, there are browser extensions that can change background color too.  If you just make white text, people using dark mode would likely see that text as normal and could again be confused.

I wish I had a better answer for you, but I wanted to get these comments out there for you and others who might come along and see this thread.

-Chris

[chrismhs]

In the teacher view of new quizzes, you can't copy the text until you get in to a test bank.  Not sure why that is when the students can copy directly in the test.  It still would be a helpful feature.

[AdamChin]

Hey @k_wullstein !

I've been thinking about this issue too, and I'm surprised Canvas doesn't have an option for this; it wouldn't actually be too difficult for them to program---many sites have this kind of feature.  But alas!  Not Canvas!

One way around students copy-pasting questions is to upload the questions as images rather than as plain text.  So you could type out the question, take a screenshot of it, and paste it into the question textbox in the quiz maker.  This way students can't simply copy-paste.  Of course, they can still type out the question, but it's an added cost and they might learn that it's better to actually try answering than simply looking it up.

Of course, as with any time you have content images, you'll want to make sure there's alt text---which can just be the question itself!  So that seems to cover the kinds of accessibility concerns @chriscas had.  That said, there are probably other issues with this solution I haven't thought of or encountered.

Hope this is useful!

~Adam

[k_wullstein]

@AdamChin thanks for sharing that approach - but as you indicate the alt text is necessary and does that cause more difficulty to students than necessary.  Appreciate the creative idea!