OITE 2009 And Ninja Moderation

We as Orthopods are suppose to epitomize integrity and be of high moral standing. OK granted the OITE does not make you a great surgeon, we have an obligation to this learned profession to be upright in all our endeavours. With that said we should have respect for the Academy in their pursuit of assesing us in what ever way or form (glitches or not). It is quite unfair that for me (a PGY 3) who worked her butt off all year, who did not do well as expected (no one in my program did) and then people cheat, carry up the mean centiles and people's grades suffer the consequences. In my program it is absolutely frowned upon when you drop below the 30th centile. With some residents potentially not being promoted. So this injustice should be propergated (cheating that is) and I think the Academy should not do this for future exams (release answers early. The exam on computer was a great idea I had no problems, but this potential to cheat thing is absolutely unacceptable.
Lets hope I do not drop below the 30th centile I get promoted. Wish me luck

Typo Everyone: "this injustice should not be propergated (cheating that is) and I think the Academy should not do this for future exams (release answers early)".

I understand that the Academy's first attempt at computerizing the OITE was obviously flawed. This forum was not the place for you to address this issue. I have created more headache for your fellow residents than you may realize. Ethically what you did was wrong. I hope you realize that yourself. The moderator of these forums did the correct thing by removing your post. I don't know if you realize the storm that is coming your way.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to have pointed out a flaw in the security of the exam in any forum. This was likely discovered independently by multiple people and at least now everybody knows about it. If none of this was widely known, you could have been unfairly penalized by a poor result in what is now a compromised exam.

Hacking into the results early and distributing the answers is bad, but letting everyone know about the existance of a very serious flaw in the exam doesn't seem to me to be ethically problematic. There is no way that this breach was isolated to the original poster. Finding the answers was so incredibly easy that anyone unscrupulous enough to half cheat would have successfully done so (and we're burying our head in the sand to think that there aren't people out there who would do this).

Those who have graded their tests, did you feel it was easier or harder?

I feel those who worked very hard and ended up doing well should not be penalized for those who decided to be unethical. Means don't change dramatically each year on any standardized test. If means are way up this year(for obvious reasons) they should be adjusted accordingly to match the means for the last few years for the given YIT level. This will closely reflect the percentiles for those who were honest(or didn't even know answers were available). Taking the test over is not a viable option; no time in my program.. Those who scored very low in the past and now scored in 99th should be scrutinized. Just my thoughts...