At the same time, it would be unrealistic to think hard-core cheaters would stop cheating just because the word "honor" is attached to the monitoring method. After all, if you cheat well, you can be an "honors" student.

So there is a tension because people are torn between the knowledge that they can cheat and the fear that their fellow students would tell on them.

So each student becomes a proctor--looking around and checking out if anyone else is cheating. People are making sure that no one is looking at their test, or at anyone else's. And it is a lot easier for one student to notice when someone two feet away is looking at his paper than a proctor from 25 feet.

This situation in many respects reflects the weaknesses of traditional method as students are pitted against each other as if they were pitted against an authority. In bringing students together, it may actually drive them further apart by forcing them to police each other. Anothger weakness with the system is that students should not have to waste their mental energy thinking about whether people will be cheating.

But it deserves serious discussion because it squarely addresses the wrongs of cheating: that you are hurting your peers. Your peers are responsible for making that clear, not some professor-surrogate.

Short of giving each test-taker his own room, there is no flawless scheme. Any exam monitoring method is problematic because it is based on a sour--but realistic--assessment of human nature. And that is one of the few things that is harder to change than Harvard's policies.