Is Texas Tech doing serious damage to students with on-line testing deficiencies?

Submitted by a Pratt on Texas listener:

Problems [with on-line testing at Texas Tech] were present last year (Pre-Covid 19) as well, but students could take their tests on campus on-line in the library or on campus inside the trust zone of Tech’s networks.

Introduce remote study by internet and less than rock solid internet service by some Lubbock providers, and unrecoverable GPA damages occurs due to testing applications that cannot recover from a service disruption.

If one is an on-line student when their internet connection goes down during an on-line test, there are issues.

If you’ve answered 53 of 100 questions correctly when it goes down you have an unrecoverable problem. The best test score one can achieve is then 53.

The folks at this bastion of technology, that sprang from Texas Technological College into Texas Tech University, outsourced their testing to a third party that has no provision whatever to recover from an Internet disruption to allow a student to finish their test.

GPA’s are where scholarship awards and continued eligibility, even candidates for Medical school are decided.

Someone is paying for these kids to go to school, whether through students earnings,  earned through military service, personal student loans or scholarships they have earned.

Tech pays nothing. They consume dollars – taxes or private funds, grants etc. That equally applies to Athletics which are based on donors, as are scholarships.

When I contacted Tech to try to mitigate these inequities, (failure to render services paid for if you ask me) there was nothing but initial silence.

You will have to call IT they eventually said.

Days later, I reached someone in IT who stated they did not have control over the operation of testing. It was an outsourced service as required by the various departments.

I serve on a scholarship committee, deciding among applicants and students presently on scholarship, if the remain eligible. It’s based on hours and GPA.

Some of our scholarship funds go to students at Tech as well as other educational programs, including trades.

I seek to mentor and encourage these young scholars to do exceptional work and promote citizenship and fair play.

It’s not that they are to manifest these themselves, but they must receive them.

It is essential that Texas Tech University place the needs of the students paying them for an education first, and place their own efforts to promote what I refer to as an “Accent on Excellence.”

I can read the faculty and administration’s curricula vitae’s until I turn blue but I will not be satisfied until results reflect reality and students are given a testing platform representative of their knowledge and effort.