TRADOC to review Web-based points system - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

TRADOC to review Web-based points system

After years of ignoring warnings that enlisted soldiers were cheating on Web-based tests to gain points for promotion, the Army has acknowledged “vulnerabilities” in the system and a review is underway.

Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va., announced in a press release Dec. 18 that two days earlier he had directed TRADOC, which oversees soldier training and standards, “to determine the depth of the problem and take action on those issues that TRADOC can control.”

The review is being conducted by acting chief of staff Maj. Gen. Abraham Turner, according to TRADOC spokesman Harvey Perritt, who said Wallace did not announce a specific timetable.

Perritt said Wallace would not add anything further to his written statement “until the review is over.”

The cheating appears to go as far back as 1999, according to an in-depth report by the Boston Globe, which found that hundreds of thousands of exams and corresponding answers were downloaded and shared by soldiers in that time.

“Cheating violates our core Army values,” Wallace said in the press release, pointing out that “the backbone of our Army is our noncommissioned officer corps. Each and every one of them must live the Army values and be leaders of character. The institution depends on them.”

Wallace stated that TRADOC “became aware of the vulnerabilities in the Army Correspondence Course Program online testing system” in July, when the existence of a soldier-run Web site known as Shamschool.com was exposed in a Globe story and later reported in Army Times.

According to Wallace, a review of online testing procedures and policies was begun immediately.

But he has not addressed the recommendations made by a panel of experts assembled in 2001 — which suggested, among other things, that the most sensitive tests, in which lack of knowledge of the material could have dire consequences, be given by live proctors, as reported in the Globe story.

The story also said that recommendations made by a captain with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., who in July investigated the soldier who ran Shamschool.com and his Web site, were ignored, except one — that Shamschool.com be blocked on military computers at various locations.

The soldier, Spc. Adam Chrysler, was ordered by his command in August to remove the ACCP material from the site and later, after an investigation into matters unrelated to the site, was chaptered out of the Army, according to a note he posted on the site in October.

Chrysler started Shamschool.com in 2006 while he was stationed in Korea, and he resumed posting ACCP tests and answers after he left the Army.

On Dec. 17, he posted the site on eBay, describing it as “a very controversial site that has been featured in the media at least 8 times.”

The Web site, he boasted, “currently generates over $1,400 profit a month in CD sales ... however, visitors to the site can download all the content for free.”

Shamschool.com, which claimed more than 10,000 members and 500,000 hits a day at its peak, is only one of numerous sites and message boards where soldiers can go to share and request information.

Soldiers up for sergeant and staff sergeant are scored on a promotion worksheet, and they earn points for a number of tasks and accomplishments such as weapons qualifications, physical fitness test performance, decorations and education.

The completion of ACCP tests is an integral part of earning points and, according to Human Resources Command, there are about 30,000 specialists, corporals and sergeants competing for promotion at any given time.

A pattern that suggested the possibility of cheating was detected by a testing official at Fort Eustis, Va., in 1999, but the official, according to the Globe story, lacked the resources and the authority to launch an investigation.

The responsibility for such investigations falls to a soldier’s unit, and commanders may be reluctant to make a priority of such an investigation.

Senior NCOs have complained that the online testing system not only is vulnerable to cheating, but is so loosely managed that it allows soldiers to take courses that are unrelated to their career field and do not contribute to their professional development.

An Army official in charge of online testing, who spoke to Army Times in August, noted that cheating is nothing new, but given the nature of automated testing, the Army’s challenge is to stay one step ahead.

Another official said the Army has considered several options that address this generation of soldiers, who are skilled at maneuvering Web-based programs: randomized test questions, a larger pool of test items, timed exams or proctored exams.

But with soldiers deploying at a consistent rate, requiring them to find an education center or other designated location for proctored exams could be impractical and unfair, Carol Washington, chief of Individual Training Support based at Fort Eustis, told Army Times in an e-mail.

The Army, she said, is transitioning to a more robust and potentially more secure Army Learning Management System, in which guidelines for testing could eliminate the use of instant messaging, e-mailing and printing test questions.