I'm a business teacher teaching Computer Applications. To prevent cheating
how can I tell which student was the author of the document? Is there a way
to see who has worked on the document or where it was stored?
There isn't any reliable way.
*If* the person who first created the document had previously entered
their name in the Tools > Options > User Information dialog, that name
would have been placed in the Author field in the File > Properties >
Summary dialog. Of course, anybody can type anything into the User
Information, and can change it at any time. Even if it shows the real
name of the person who owns the computer, there's no way to know
whether that person was actually using the computer at that time.
*If* no one changed or deleted the entry in the Author field, you can
see it there when you open the document, and even in Windows Explorer
when the mouse pointer hovers over the document's icon.
In some cases, you can open a Word document in NotePad or a hex editor
and find the names of the original author and up to 10 other people
who made changes to it, somewhere near the end of the file. Again,
this assumes that those people had filled in their User Information,
done so honestly, and hadn't taken any measures to cover their tracks.
Word certainly doesn't enforce any of this.
All of this adds up to "no". At least, not with the certainty I'd want
before accusing someone of cheating.
--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
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