The GST Honor System
Some of the finest academic institutions in the world adopt an honor system, according to which the students assume full responsibility for honesty in written examinations. Typically, examinations are thereby not supervised: The instructor in charge simply distributes the examination papers, waits for a short time for any questions, and then leaves the room, returning at the end of the stated period to collect the answer books.
At the end of his or her test, Global Standard Test (GST) online candidates are required to virtually sign the following statement: “I pledge my honor that I have not violated the GST Honor Code during this examination”. Based on the five pillars illustrated on the right-side of this page, the L6S advisory committee believes that the only unfair form of taking the exam would be either to receive assistance from other individuals during the test or trying to tamper with the time, score, questions or any of the variables that may affect actual performance on the test.
1
ADULT LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Although the Global Standards Tests were conceived for students of Lean and Six Sigma regardless of their age or professional background, the committee found that most of the people who work with or study these methodologies are typically adults who take pride in their skills and accomplishments. Thus, for people whose goal is true self-improvement and building demonstrable skills, which are going to be repeatedly put to the test on the field before other people, personal responsibility is in a vast majority of cases a matter of personal value.
2
OPEN-BOOK TEST
The tests have been primarily designed to make meaningful use of Lean and Six Sigma concepts, e.g. to reason and not to barely remember definitions or nomenclature. Therefore, the committee feels that even if a candidate had all the books in front of her or him during the exam, to make an intelligent and effective use of them in a time-constrained setting would only be possible if the candidate were indeed well prepared.
3
TIME LIMITS FOR COMPLETING THE EXAM
In addition to the reasoning required to answer a majority of questions, the exam is paced so that there is no time to go and “study” the topics required to answer most questions during the exam itself.
4
RANDOMIZATION AND CONTINUOUS REVISION
The questions in the exams keep changing and answers are never fixed. In statistical terms, it would be highly improbable to encounter two identical tests. This was done in order to make question memorization meaningless.
5
PROVABLE PREPARATION
If a prospective employer, a boss, or a mentor should ever question the validity of the Global Standard Test, all they would have to do is take the Talent Appraisal Test together with the GST Certified Individual anywhere they wish to, anytime. The Talent Appraisal Test was created to establish objective evidence of superior preparation in Lean and Six Sigma by utilizing statistical sampling and statistical inference. Although the intent of the TA test is not to certify anyone’s knowledge all-around, a passing score in a Lean or Six Sigma TA strongly suggests that a person would also be successful at the corresponding GST.
The GST Honor Code
1. Violations of the honor system shall consist of any attempt to receive assistance from any person or of any attempt to give assistance, whether the one so doing has completed his or her own work or not. Other violations include, but are not limited to, any attempt to gain an unfair advantage in regard to an examination, such as tampering with a graded exam or claiming another’s work to be one’s own.
2. Violations shall also consist of obtaining or attempting to obtain, previous to any examinations, copies of the examination questions to appear thereon, or to obtain any illegal knowledge of these questions.
3. Termed perjury, lying before the committee or purposely misleading the committee shall also constitute a violation of the Honor Code.
4. Inability to sign the pledge at the end of a GST examination will block the grading of the exam itself and interrupt the certification process.
5. The pledge is as follows: “I pledge my honor that I have not violated the GST Honor Code during this examination.”
6. In order to uphold the validity of the GST online certification system, candidates are required to report to the Honor Committee any suspected violation of the Honor Code that he or she has observed or learned about.
Violations: When a report of a suspected violation of the honor system is received, the Advisory Committee immediately conducts an investigation. If the candidate in question is acquitted, all records of the investigation are destroyed. If a candidate is found guilty, her or she may be asked to re-take the test in a controlled (proctored) environment. If this is refused, the committee reserves the right to revoke the candidate’s certification.