US: Stopping Student Cheats by Learning Trickery

The US frontier in the battle to defeat student cheating may be at the testing centre of the University of Central Florida, writes Trip Gabriel for The New York Times. No gum is allowed during an exam: chewing could disguise a student's speaking into a hands-free cellphone to an accomplice outside.
The 228 computers that students use are recessed into desk tops so that anyone trying to photograph the screen - using, say, a pen with a hidden camera, in order to help a friend who will take the test later - is easy to spot. Scratch paper is allowed, but it is stamped with the date and must be turned in later. When a proctor sees something suspicious, he records the student's real-time work at the computer and directs an overhead camera to zoom in, and both sets of images are burned onto a CD for evidence.
Taylor Ellis, the associate dean who runs the testing centre within the business school at Central Florida, America's third-largest campus by enrolment, said that cheating had dropped significantly, to 14 suspected incidents out of 64,000 exams administered during the spring semester. As the eternal temptation of students to cheat has gone high-tech, educators have responded with their own efforts to crack down.
Full report on The New York Times site, July 5, 2010