Exam invigilation

Does exam invigilation really work? I’m sat here in a room with 32 students, heads down, working through some fun rocket motion problems, and it strikes me as quite a waste of time for everyone concerned, for me to sit here. Sure, the idea is that I ensure that there’s no talking, note-passing, or other nefarious activities going on, but, if the students really want to cheat, won’t it happen anyway? If the idea of me being here is simply to act like a scarecrow, wouldn’t it be enough to tell the students that there’s a webcam installed in the corner and that the professor is sitting in his office, monitoring them? Wouldn’t that be just enough of a threat to them to think twice about blatantly cheating?

If it’s not only to stop cheating from occurring, but to also lay out the exams, pass around note paper, collect the exams etc., surely I’m massively overpaid? Maybe this is the real difference between academia and industry. Maybe with the bottom-line not being money, it’s ok that I’m being paid effectively 12 euros/hr after taxes to do something that’s distinctly not research. Ok, maybe 12 euros/hr isn’t really even that much, but I can’t imagine that this is an efficient system.

Anyway, another 1hr 10mins to go, let’s see whether this gets interesting …