Universities Flag Smartwatches For Cheating Potential

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that universities in Australia are asking students to remove their watches before final exams. One university in Sydney required students to put all wristwatches in clear bags under their desks, while another in Melbourne allowed students to place traditional watches on their desk but barred all smartwatches from the room.

The Australian universities are not alone – multiple schools in England have banned the devices as well. Eric Klopfer, director of the Scheller Teacher Education Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the Chronicle that similar measures will soon come to American universities. In addition, he said there has been a greater effort to create tests that focus less on memorization, and thus create less danger of storing answers on smart devices. “As we get better at our educational system, it will seem less likely we need to ban these things,” he said, “because the kinds of things we’ll be putting on an exam, students won’t be able to store on a watch.”