Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

While it sounds like the College Board may be at fault for some of the issues, like the test timing out when HEIC images were sent or the initial communication of the issue, I wouldn't be so quick to place all of the blame on them. Part of the problem is how we more-or-less glorify an ignorance of technology. This can be seen in both students trying to change the file type by changing the file extension and JPEG being referred to as a "most compatible" rather than by name in the settings.

EDIT: the comment about "most compatible" was based upon information from the article, rather than access to an iPhone. I have since looked it up, and JPEG is mentioned underneat the option.

I am saying this because people need to have a degree of understanding of technology in order to have some control over it, even though I recognize that some people will construe such statements as being elitist. That depth of knowledge does not even have to be particularly deep. In this case, understanding that photos may be represented in different ways by the computer and that you have to ensure that the recipient can accept that representation is important. After all, this is not the only case where they will run into this issue. It is a big part of the reason why businesses settle upon some form of standard for the exchange of data, may that be through common business practices or a standardization body.

> JPEG being referred to as a "most compatible" rather than by name in the settings.

The settings do explicitly mention JPEG though:

> Most Compatible will always use JPEG/H.264...

Ironically the person from the article who attempted converting the HEIC files to JPG by renaming them was taking a Computer Science test.

Exactly. Simple tech literacy was missing in the 1% of students that failed this test through their HEIC submissions. Even though I acknowledge the panic of a weird circumstance during an important test, editing the extension in file explorer is just too far from logical.

Apps are becoming so streamlined and gesture intuitive that children and young adults might actually be regressing in their tech competence while increasing their reliance on it. This is akin to cars packed with electronics, easing use while decreasing DIY repairs and understanding. This decreases our right to repair as a consequence of ease.

Many children will not navigate the antiquated forums and php sites that taught me problem-solving and a degree of independence. I'm not sure what will replace this lost experience for them.

I guess I joined the tech admin / helpdesk fields as a way of putting my money where my mouth is, like buying calls on these services' growing necessity.

> Apps are becoming so streamlined and gesture intuitive that children and young adults might actually be regressing in their tech competence while increasing their reliance on it.

This is truer than you might imagine.

I recently had to explain to a 16-year-old intern that their phone is a computer. And that "apps" are recipes for that "computer". And that humans made all those recipes sitting on the phone.

This was clearly a quite shocking revelation. It wasn't a hard conceptual leap, but the "app abstraction" is so total that it completely cognitively blocked the idea that their desktop computer and their phone are effectively the exact same thing.

Of course, at that point, the obvious questions started: "So, I could run <desktop program> on my phone? Why can't I do <deskptop action> on my phone?" etc. Eventually heading to the inevitable "Why do the phone manufacturers prevent you from doing something you want to do that the phone is perfectly capable of?"

>Simple tech literacy was missing in the 1% of students that failed this test through their HEIC submissions. Even though I acknowledge the panic of a weird circumstance during an important test, editing the extension in file explorer is just too far from logical.

I don't think this is a fair statement. Image file formats are something that very few people need to think about these days. As another commenter pointed out, why wouldn't changing the extension trigger the OS to convert the file? It was worth a try.

Not everyone needs to be an expert in everything.

>After all, this is not the only case where they will run into this issue.

The AP exam is taken by high school kids. This very likely is the first time they have run into this issue. Blaming them for not knowing how to deal with it isn't "elitist", it just lacks empathy.

> why wouldn't changing the extension trigger the OS to convert the file?

If you change the extension on any operating system and then open it in the image viewer, it does appear to work. It doesn't as image viewers do not trust the file extension and ignore it, but there is no indication of that to the average user.

Computer literacy is not one of the topics covered by high school computer science.

> image viewers do not trust the file extension and ignore it

Not all of them; for instance, if I rename a .jpg to a .png exension and try to open it with Gnome's EOG, it presents an error saying "Not a PNG file", instead of showing the image.

I have to teach an entire lesson about downloading a file, finding it in the downloads folder, and unzipping it.

Apple did a good job abstracting away the file system.

It's also elitist for Apple to change the default file format to one that's patent encumbered and not compatible with basically any other software aside from their own.

A behaviour which I'm quite fond of, as it allows me to fix the file extensions. I generally don't like relying on the file extension for information, but it helps me keep my media collection clean in this case. It'd be ideal if it displayed the image anyway, while also displaying a warning message that says the extension doesn't match the actual file type.

Making the test user-friendly and to fail elegantly is the College Board’s job. That this issue occurred in the first place shows a complete and utter lack of any competent QA whatsoever, any competent programming, and any competent risk management.

The blame is 99% in the CollegeBoard’s hand. It is completely unacceptable for them to fail in this manner. If you are an institution that holds so much power over students’ lives, failures like these must be punished severely, but instead, the Board is getting off with just making the students re-take the exam when they are coming off of their most prepared state.