Sorry for the Danish post i hope you can translate it.
The Ministry warns that Microsoft programs can create problems for written exams for students with Mac computers.
Users who have updated the programs to the latest version may experience the programs running slowly, freezing and crashing. This means that the examinees are delayed in their work and that parts of the answers risk being lost, write the Agency for Education and Quality and the Agency for IT and Learning in a notice to schools.
I know it sounds crazy, but a better free alternative exists.
It sounds insane to me they would use a suite where they have no control over its state… Can’t they at least block the updates? Just imagine you’re a student and your success depends on the incompetence of others
I would imagine they have a similar setup as here in Norway (who’s also experiencing this issue) where the students own the machine and they aren’t centrally managed, especially the Mac’s
Yeah I assumed they would be centrally managed, but they are not apparently. So then I don’t really see why they would get a time extension to be honest. You could easily game that then and just fake it crashing.
A single person experiencing an error is bad luck and may go through an apeals process. Half a class experiencing the same error jeopardizes the legitimacy of the exam for enough students that they decided to handle it collectively. It may be a third party tool but it is one they are expected to use which changes things. Had it been a few students using libre office they would probably be out of luck as they would have used non standard software.
Another important note is that many exams now require digitally handing in the assignment, so the only alternative to writing the assignment in a text editor would likely have been to scan a handwritten one and convert it to pdf, if that was even allowed. So while particular hardware and software isn’t required, the limitations of the exam makes it impossible to completly avoid errors such as these.
Sorry for the Danish post […]
Never apologize for your own language.
Thanks! I guess foreign languages nowadays are just a minor inconvenience.
That said, apologising for sharing an article in one, is an even smaller inconvenience for me, so I can as well do it, for the sake of the few who may feel that its a huge burden
Unless you’re French.
While English is most of the time the lowest common denominator, I love to see some variety!
Why are they using Word in an exam in the first palace? Like, to write an essay? Our non-pen-and-paper exams were all using some web platform that worked pretty well.
It’s mostly for students with issues that puts them at a bigger disadvantage to those that are “normal” when writing with a pen. Learning difficulties and motor function issues and differences alike. I used a word processor in exams towards the end of college due to learning difficulties and a subconscious grip that would ache my hand with overuse of a pen that slowed me down compared to others by a lot.
This is not true. At least not here in Denmark. Computers are ackctually required
You can even see in the picture above that everyone has a pc
Oh interesting. I stand corrected
Both middle school and high school in Denmark are required to use computers for Danish, English, German etc exams. It’s used for essays and other tests. It’s been like this since the early 2000.
Here is the translation of the Danish text into English:
“Chaos and Confusion” during Exams after Word Update Ministry warns that Microsoft programs may cause problems for students with Mac computers during written exams.
For several written exams, students with Mac computers have experienced issues with Microsoft Word if they had the latest version of the program installed.
BY Thomas Prakash TODAY AT 10:42
High school student Silje Højer Lauritsen was about an hour into her exam on Thursday when her computer started having problems. Suddenly, her Word program began running slowly. The word processing program “froze,” and she could not save her answers for the assignment in the marketing subject, where she was explaining companies’ value chains.
- It was really frustrating, especially because you are already so stressed and have so many thoughts during an exam, she says. Many of the other students in the exam room at the HHX high school in Risskov, Aarhus Business College, experienced similar problems. Silje Højer Lauritsen estimates nearly half of them did.
Problems at several high schools IT staff and teachers ran in and out of the room to help the students, and they ended up giving them an extra hour to complete the exam. However, not everyone succeeded.
It was almost as if it wasn’t an exam anymore because there was so much chaos and confusion. SILJE HØJER LAURITSEN, STUDENT, HHX HIGH SCHOOL IN RISSKOV
- I have a friend who had her assignment deleted because of it, and now she has to take a makeup exam in August, says Silje Højer Lauritsen.
At several other high schools in the country, the same problems have been experienced in recent days.
- It caused a lot of unrest in the exam situation for the affected students, says Flemming Madsen, IT manager at Aalborg Business College. The problem is due to a recent update to Microsoft Word, which can cause the program to run slowly and crash for students with Mac computers.
‘Use other programs, or take frequent backups’ The Ministry of Education is aware of the problem and warns educational institutions that there may be issues with the latest version of Word and Excel for Mac users.
- Users who have updated the programs to the latest version may find that the programs run slowly, freeze, and crash. This means that examinees are delayed in their work, and parts of their answers risk being lost, writes the Danish Agency for Education and Quality and the Danish Agency for IT and Learning in a message to schools.
- We encourage institutions to inform students about this problem so they can take precautions, such as taking frequent backups or using other similar programs, the recommendation says. One solution could be to uninstall the new version and reinstall an earlier version of the program - downgrading Word from version 16.85 to version 16.84.
Help to solve the problem The Danish Agency for IT and Learning provides guidance on its website on how Mac users can solve the problem and downgrade to an older version of Microsoft Word.
Distracted from the task The ministry states that it is not responsible for the use of so-called third-party programs used by institutions and students and therefore does not have an overview of how many were affected by the problems. At the HHX high school in Risskov, Silje Højer Lauritsen felt that the IT problems made an already stressful situation even more stressful.
- It was almost as if it wasn’t an exam anymore because there was so much chaos and confusion, she says.
- I felt that it took a lot of focus away from my tasks.
Microsoft apologizes At Microsoft, one of the world’s largest IT companies, they regret that the latest update is causing problems.
- We are aware that there may be issues with the latest version of some of our products for Mac users, reads a written response from Microsoft in Denmark.
- We apologize for the inconvenience and take the problem very seriously. We are in close contact with our product team, who are working to solve the problem. In the meantime, we encourage all affected users to follow the recommendations to reinstall an earlier version and take frequent backups, says Microsoft.
At Microsoft, autocorrecting “apple” to “appelle” is such such a minor and humourous oopsies that they will use to force an update on all users next week at 4:59pm when they are all trying to save stuff before going home. But in the real world, that’s annoying as heck.
I understand approximately half of what you wrote, but I see quite a few people upvoted you. Is this what dementia is like?
At fedi, this is totally ok! Because I can just block you and not have to deal with your negativity.
I actually wasn’t being negative, but carry on.
Man I feel old, back in my day we weren’t allowed to use anything more powerful than a TI83 on most exams and the answers were on scantrons or paper due to fears of using the internet to cheat. These days with GPT I’m surprised that’s not even more of a concern.
I feel you! When i took my exams we didn’t even have the internet!
LibreOffice is pretty capable. There are also web-based options.
I just wish compatibility was better. Even if I save in ODT format in either Word or Writer, opening the file in the other program almost always results in formatting errors. Not to mention using DOC/DOCX.
Bet the school and students will continue to use Word and risk future critical times with proprietary software they’re not in control of.
If Microsoft fails their exams, you fail too (:
“Use löpande backups” I mean isn’t that built in? Could they just use something else? Like LibreOffice is a thing that exists.
I don’t feel bad for Mac users
In other words: “let them suffer too.”
