Why not just have it off as a default?

It's just incredibly weird to even think that a student is recorded at all during a test. Educators do not record students taking a test while in the classroom, it's a "live feed" if you want to put it into computer terms of the proctor in the room.

The use case for surveillance software on devices not owned by the school is somewhat unsettling. Can it be "switched off" when students aren't using the device for school purposes?

Is it really engagement when you disable distractions? How does this prepare students to deal with something they struggle with when they do have the ability to distract themselves with other sites?

The ad copy suggests a direct appeal to teachers and admin. I wonder what the procurement process is like for these technologies. Who gets to decide whether/how these technologies are purchased/used?

Every day of the year, including weekends, holidays, and vacations? Including days when students are absent?

I'm wondering what student privacy actually means to students here. What would students consider their own privacy?

This is a really interesting section because it makes references to the Student Privacy Pledge, which has recently been described as "toothless" following the Illuminate data breach.

I hate ambiguous terms like this because people can just make it mean anything they want it to mean. What do they mean by "thrive"?

What does effective learning look like to a student surveillance company?

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word "deploy" means, "to place in battle formation or appropriate positions." I think GoGuardian's word choice reinforces a narrative that the surveillance technology is meant for policing students. It's cop shit.

I wonder if an internal research team's findings can be trusted. What other independent, external safeguards should be in place?

Hi! Welcome to the Civics of Technology #AnnotateEdTech conversation about school surveillance platforms. We’ll be engaging in close, critical reading of the claims made by ed-tech companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, reports, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about school surveillance technologies.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions: * What do you notice? What do you wonder? * What narratives does the company tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching? About learning?

You can also use the Baldwin Test for educational technology to guide your annotations: 1. Be as specific as possible about what the technology in question is and how it works. 2. Identify any obstacles to our own understanding of a technology that result from failures of corporate or government transparency. 3. Name the corporations responsible for creating and spreading the technological product. 4. Attribute agency to the human actors building and using the technology, never to the technology itself. 5. Name the technology’s theory (or theories) of learning. 6. Describe the technology’s effects on pedagogy. 7. Highlight the technology’s impacts on the environment.

Thanks for joining us!

There's an interesting sense of urgency in this phrase. And following this, phrases that involve violence. Is the urgency more to compel people to buy?

I wonder how they determine if it's nuanced.

I'm deeply skeptical of sentimental analysis and the claims people make about it. How do others feel?

I wonder how often Securly's rhetoric uses scare tactics to motivate purchasing.

Hi! Welcome to the Civics of Technology #AnnotateEdTech conversation about school surveillance platforms. We’ll be engaging in close, critical reading of the claims made by ed-tech companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, reports, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about school surveillance technologies.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions: * What do you notice? What do you wonder? * What narratives does the company tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching? About learning?

You can also use the Baldwin Test for educational technology to guide your annotations: 1. Be as specific as possible about what the technology in question is and how it works. 2. Identify any obstacles to our own understanding of a technology that result from failures of corporate or government transparency. 3. Name the corporations responsible for creating and spreading the technological product. 4. Attribute agency to the human actors building and using the technology, never to the technology itself. 5. Name the technology’s theory (or theories) of learning. 6. Describe the technology’s effects on pedagogy. 7. Highlight the technology’s impacts on the environment.

Thanks for joining us!

These technologies appear to be strengthening the school-to-prison pipeline. For more on how digital surveillance is weaponized against youth - particularly youth from nondominant groups - read this report by Jennifer Jones and Ana Nájera Mendoza: Policing Students Online: The Increasing Threat of School-Sanctioned Digital Surveillance

Hi! Welcome to the Civics of Technology #AnnotateEdTech conversation about school surveillance platforms. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, reports, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about school surveillance technologies.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions: * What do you notice? What do you wonder? * What narratives does the report tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching? About learning?

Thanks for joining us!

The recent episode of the podcast In Machines We Trust titled "Can AI keep guns out of schools?" raises a lot of problems with this software.

I find this whole quote fascinating as it's spinning a lot of narratives at once about the company's so-called unique, cutting-edge technology and the emphasis on immediacy. How are context/nuance and immediacy at odds?

Oh, I thought you were going to say by making every effort to ensure assault weapons were banned. Silly me!

Hi! Welcome to the Civics of Technology #AnnotateEdTech conversation about school surveillance platforms. We’ll be engaging in close, critical reading of the claims made by ed-tech companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, reports, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about school surveillance technologies.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions: * What do you notice? What do you wonder? * What narratives does the company tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching? About learning?

You can also use the Baldwin Test for educational technology to guide your annotations: 1. Be as specific as possible about what the technology in question is and how it works. 2. Identify any obstacles to our own understanding of a technology that result from failures of corporate or government transparency. 3. Name the corporations responsible for creating and spreading the technological product. 4. Attribute agency to the human actors building and using the technology, never to the technology itself. 5. Name the technology’s theory (or theories) of learning. 6. Describe the technology’s effects on pedagogy. 7. Highlight the technology’s impacts on the environment.

Thanks for joining us!

I notice youth were not part of the conversation.

Yes, exactly my point in the previous annotation.

Raising the Baldwin Test for ed-tech and the concern about tech's impacts on the environment, I wonder about the amount of natural resources required to maintain and produced by this enormous surveillance system.

Hi! Welcome to the Civics of Technology #AnnotateEdTech conversation about school surveillance platforms. We’ll be engaging in close, critical reading of the claims made by ed-tech companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, reports, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about school surveillance technologies.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions: * What do you notice? What do you wonder? * What narratives does the company tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching? About learning?

You can also use the Baldwin Test for educational technology to guide your annotations: 1. Be as specific as possible about what the technology in question is and how it works. 2. Identify any obstacles to our own understanding of a technology that result from failures of corporate or government transparency. 3. Name the corporations responsible for creating and spreading the technological product. 4. Attribute agency to the human actors building and using the technology, never to the technology itself. 5. Name the technology’s theory (or theories) of learning. 6. Describe the technology’s effects on pedagogy. 7. Highlight the technology’s impacts on the environment.

Thanks for joining us!

Hi! Welcome to the Civics of Technology #AnnotateEdTech conversation about school surveillance platforms. We’ll be engaging in close, critical reading of the claims made by ed-tech companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, reports, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about school surveillance technologies.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions: * What do you notice? What do you wonder? * What narratives does the company tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching? About learning?

You can also use the Baldwin Test for educational technology to guide your annotations: 1. Be as specific as possible about what the technology in question is and how it works. 2. Identify any obstacles to our own understanding of a technology that result from failures of corporate or government transparency. 3. Name the corporations responsible for creating and spreading the technological product. 4. Attribute agency to the human actors building and using the technology, never to the technology itself. 5. Name the technology’s theory (or theories) of learning. 6. Describe the technology’s effects on pedagogy. 7. Highlight the technology’s impacts on the environment.

Thanks for joining us!

I'm thinking about Autumm's point about the ways companies find loopholes around institutional policies by going directly to teachers.

Evidence?

How is "power" being conceived here? Because for me, online proctoring reinforces asymetric power relationships in which students, particularly students from historically marginalized communities, are punished/policed more.

Framed as a new feature - something that you would want - they are doing you a favor. No mention of the potential harms - and how would you turn it off at an institutional level if you want to protect your students from this technology?

not students, though :)

OMG "empathetic" This was like my institution writing an entire policy that has things like "require camera on" and "good internet will make proctoring more equitable", and then ending with "we need to follow trauma-informed pedagogical practices"

When might we want our seams to be showing? What's a learning experience like when it's been smoothed down and down?

Yes, way to go promoting poor pedagogy "successfully"

First of all, how can proctoring ensure rigor in the sense of exam quality? It actually allows people who design exams poorly to have them proctored. On another note, though, the dictionary definition of rigor works well here: emphasizing inflexibility, harshness: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rigor

What is the company's definition of "active" learning? How are they selling a specific vision of active learning?

What exactly does a partnership entail?

"serving test-takers" - note the use of the term "serving" here, and focusing on the students. They claim to be serving the students not the exams, faculty or institutions. How is watching you in the privacy of your home in order to catch you cheating a service to the student???

Notice the focus on "integrity of tests" not promoting integrity as a value/behavior in STUDENTS. As Jasmine said in her keynote, we are teaching STUDENTS not CONTENT. What is more important, the exam or the person taking it?

Hello! Welcome to an #AnnotateEdTech conversation. During our open and ongoing conversations, we’ll engage in close, critical reading of the claims made by educational technology companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can act as counternarratives and living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions:

• What do you notice? What do you wonder?
• What narratives do the companies tell about education? About being a student? A teacher?
• What assumptions do the companies make about students and teachers? About learning and teaching?
• What claims do the companies make about their technology? What evidence exists to support or oppose those claims?

Thank you for joining the conversation!

The hope is that this would be adopted by universities and tech providers?

Who decides what is required? In this case it appears to be the academic institution. But I suspect, in fact, that it is the company that decides what is required, which presents a potential conflict of interest.

This vision of a classroom community is profoundly Hobbesian. What about models of learning that do not depend on competition between students or that do not treat the learning process as a limited commodity?

It's not clear, but I assume "others" means fellow students in a given class? Or someone else? This seems like less of a right and more of a product offering. It's strange that it's presented as a "review and understand" rather than something like "you have the right not to be exploited by peers, and our software will help secure that right."

I am wondering about the emphasis and value of uniformity, which assumes an ideal type that would somehow be possible for all students of all identities and circumstances to access equally. This seems profoundly apolitical/ahistorical/asocial to assume that "uniform is best" for student learning.

So this is something you can do. But would the ordinary student? How are these presented—like huge block of legalese, or in clear and coherent fashion that is human-readable?

Also notable: "Agreement" is not part of the deal.

Agree! So link to me the policy right here so I can confirm this is the case. In general, I worry that a document like this obfuscates rather than clarifies the specific policies student data is party to. I would rather see ProctorU design an easy-to-read explanation of its policies, along with easy and explicit opt-out links, than a document like this that seems designed to foster good will over clarity.

You have the right to review and understand policies? This is very interesting wording. Also, what does being "disadvantaged" look like in this context? If my internet connection flakes out, if my proctor misunderstands my behaviour, if I don't perform well in high-stakes arenas, these too are "disadvantages," surely.

I would like to know why this data collection is necessary.

Well sure, everyone has the right to expect that established polices and procedures exist...but do they actually exist? And who creates them?

Students don't have the right to work to create (or have input in the creation of) these policies and procedures...

Where is the conversation happening? Currently, this website just offers a comment form, so we can't see what other commenters are saying—just the company can. That seems like a tremendous information imbalance. I guess using Hypothesis here is one way of holding a more open discussion.

Really curious who else is involved with this initiative.

The whole idea of a student bill of rights created by a company profiting off of students' data and the invasion of students' privacy is interesting, but this 2nd rule seems particularly so, given that the usage of this software in the first place is antithetical to this presumption.

This tagline immediately calls to mind the US Border Patrol's official policy of "Prevention through Deterrence", which has killed thousands of people crossing the US/Mexican border since 2000.

The freedom to be surveilled at a time of their choosing seems like a limited freedom indeed.

Uhhhh...this testimony from an online student is really kind of bizarre! It is the same kind of language we often hear associated with online learning (flexibility, especially for working students) but the best thing about the experience is flexibility in scheduling exams.

This is something that stands out to me. The idea that remote or online learning is inherently less valuable than face-to-face learning undergirds this idea that we need to "protect" our institutions' "reputations." I've seen this in the way that some of the faculty in one of my departments discussed online learning as "giving up." (🤨)

Just thinking about how we could harness the power of wanting to protect the "reputation" of institutions of higher learning to push people to think differently and creatively about designing and teaching courses that are challenging, student-centered, and not dependent on traditional exams that must be protected at all costs...

Online proctoring and its defenders often argue the software protects the value of a student’s degree (or an institution’s degrees). I agree with a recent tweet from Ben Williamson, a professor at the University of Edinburgh: We need to “Reclaim the idea that a higher education is for the social and public good, and define the public good of HE for persons and society. This is about stating the purpose of HE beyond employability and measurability.”

What are the cognitive, psychological, and emotional effects on students from “continuous monitoring”?

I think “Crushes” is a problematic word. First, it’s a violent image. And second, those brick and mortar test centers employ people, so by “crushing” them, ProctorU is putting people out of work.

Hi! Welcome to Ethical EdTech’s first #AnnotateEdTech conversation. During our open and ongoing conversations, we’ll engage in close, critical reading of the claims made by educational technology companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about online proctoring.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions:

• What do you notice? What do you wonder?
• What narratives does the company tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching?
• What assumptions does the company make about students and teachers? About learning and teaching?
• What claims does the company make about its technology? What evidence exists to support or oppose those claims?

Thank you for joining the conversation!

"maximizing student outcomes" - what does this mean, and is it really the "core mission" of educators? I suspect this claim rests on some assumptions about the process of learning and the relationship between teacher and student.

From a student profiled in a September 29, 2020, article titled "ExamSoft’s remote bar exam sparks privacy and facial recognition concerns": “It feels like we’re being treated like we’re expendable, like our rights and our data and privacy are expendable, and so I think that’s where we’re at right now.”

I’m skeptical of this claim. If teachers or staff must review video of students the algorithm flags, in addition to all their other responsibilities, how does that save time? I believe teachers should spend their time building stronger relationships with their students and developing their teaching practices instead of honing their policing skills.

Who is “We” and what alternatives were considered? Because one of the problems with online proctoring is, in the words of Professor Joshua Eyler, "when you use proctoring software, you are measuring a student’s ability to manage cognitive load and to regulate negative emotions just as much (maybe more?) as their knowledge/understanding/ideas." Trust students, understand why students might cheat, and develop better assessments.

Hi! Welcome to Ethical EdTech’s first #AnnotateEdTech conversation. During our open and ongoing conversations, we’ll engage in close, critical reading of the claims made by educational technology companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about online proctoring.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions:

• What do you notice? What do you wonder?
• What narratives does the company tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching?
• What assumptions does the company make about students and teachers? About learning and teaching?
• What claims does the company make about its technology? What evidence exists to support or oppose those claims?

Thank you for joining the conversation!

How can Proctorio claim that their platform and company help ensure learning integrity when their CEO is in the Washington Post positing that perhaps a degree earned during the COVID-19 pandemic should be called a "corona diploma"?

This is an attack on the learning integrity of honest students.

Really telling that Amazon gets top billing here. (And it's not in alphabetical order - I double-checked!)

Proctorio has been aggressive with critics and reporters in claiming that they do not use facial recognition technology. But as has been documented, they have been marketing the product as using facial recognition technology.

In their bid response to California State University's request for proposal, they repeatedly stated that they use facial recognition technology.

It's all very confusing. Almost like they want to have it both ways - silence critics and make BANK.

And yet there is evidence of massive distrust on the part of the students that are required to use this software. Who, then, in these organizations should we say trusts this software? Do they have as much to lose in this trust as the students who are required to use the software? If these decision makers aren't forced to use the software themselves, is "trust" really an appropriate way to describe their relationship with the software?

It's always interesting to see how tech companies see opportunities to broaden their missions, to move practices from one domain into many more. What, other than proctoring, does "Learning Integrity" include? And what responsibilities does automated "Learning Integrity" remove from instructors, for better or worse?

These and other words underscore the alleged neutrality of the algorithms in Proctorio's software, and obscure the fact that people - with all our messy biases - constructed these systems and processes. And if I understand correctly, there are several layers of human intervention in proctoring and checking flagged behavior or results.

I'd like to see more interrogation of these claims to neutrality and acknowledgment on the part of the company that as flaws in the system come to light, it's people who are doing the work of discussing and addressing them.

This implies integrity of assessment is limited to our ability to surveil it. How can we work to expand the conversation about Academic Integrity beyond the technical tools?

"a method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that they know a value x, without conveying any information apart from the fact that they know the value x" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof

But what specifically is and isn't known about user data? Does this mean the company doesn't have certain data that is accessible to the instructor? What is the threat model here?

I notice the quote is attributed to the university rather than an individual person. I wonder: why attribute the quote to the university rather than an individual person?

I’m struck by the image of the software constantly watching students that’s conjured by “unblinking”. I also can’t help but think of HAL 9000.

The word “Instant” suggests immediate access for all students. However, digital redlining and a lack of high-speed internet means that, for many, “Instant” is not possible.

I’d like to know what evidence Proctorio can offer to support this claim. The company often says it’s up to the teacher (or in my experience, a staff member) to review a student’s video and then decide if the behavior flagged by the algorithm as suspicious constitutes cheating. But the teacher or staff member cannot help but hold implicit biases in addition to any explicit biases they may possess. So how can Proctorio prove their software eliminates bias? And what other forms and sources of bias are built into the software?

Hi! Welcome to Ethical EdTech’s first #AnnotateEdTech conversation. During our open and ongoing conversations, we’ll engage in close, critical reading of the claims made by educational technology companies about their technology, how it works, and to what ends. The annotations we leave behind can also act as living resources for others to visit and build upon; to that end, you can use the affordances of social annotation, such as hyperlinking, to connect your observations with texts beyond each company’s website. You can also draw upon and contribute to a growing library of journalism, peer-reviewed articles, opinion pieces, and other texts about online proctoring.

If you decide to annotate, you might consider addressing some of the following questions:

• What do you notice? What do you wonder?
• What narratives does the company tell about education? About being a student? A teacher? An administrator? About teaching?
• What assumptions does the company make about students and teachers? About learning and teaching?
• What claims does the company make about its technology? What evidence exists to support or oppose those claims?

Thank you for joining the conversation!

The same kind of ominous, vague quote from an institution, not a person.

They are AGENTS. Detection agents. Detectives. POLICE.

The empty rhetoric/jargon here is SO THICK and, again, strangely un-personed. What are the nouns/things in this sentence? Expectations (whose?), integrity, authorship, outcomes, success, retention. Blergh.

This is so creepy. As a writer/academic/faculty member I have never had to sign a "pledge of originality." ALSO -- what do they mean by "originality?" What is the "value" (and to whom) of "originality?"

A gauntlet. A guard. A gatekeeping. GROSS.

Proctorio employs tools to avoid -- they don't even bother suggesting that writers/learners are being offered tools connected with learning. Proctorio does the employing and the avoiding. #AnnotateEdTech

This is really striking me. "Protect" the "value" of "degrees" and "programs." Where are the "students," where is the "learning," etc. The (not very)sub-text here is that the "value" of degrees/certification-products/programs (curricula?) is seen as housed in the institution and its conventions/traditions, not in the learner/learning, not in wider publics, etc. #AnnotateEdTech

So it is up to the student to activate their own privacy rights? The default should be that all applicable privacy rights are enabled without a student having to opt in.

What are the potential harms that could come from instantly flagging "unusual or suspicious behavior" that occurs one time (and that a time of high stress in a student's life), rather than acknowleging students as actual humans living actual human lives whose behavior during one short time period cannot be understood outside of that context?

This makes a completely false equivalence between surveiling and assessing.

I genuinely do not understand the connection between policing test-taking behavior and improving learning outcomes. The company specifies that their analytics can help identify students who may need additional support or personalized instruction, but they are not truly assessing exam outcomes - they are watching for plagiarism, students asking other people to take their exams for them, or other behaviors that someone (institutions? instructors?) assumes need to be monitored.

Just the way this is worded is 😒...like a signal to students that if you find a new "pattern" to cheat, we'll find you...

What happens if a test-taker revokes access? I'm assuming the "at any time" means after they've completed a test?

This statement paired with this image makes it seem like a straight-forward process with very little grey area.

Such assuredness. Not even 'potentially suspicious behaviors?' All behaviors outside of the 'norm' automatically become suspicious.

Something about the comparison here strikes me as eerie, especially since facial detection has been found so wanting. Regardless that it's AI doing the majority of the "watching", as a student I would feel uncomfortable having a rando in my house simply to watch me take a test, not to mention a rando who may or may not recognize me depending on my race.

For who? This quote is again attributed to a college, not to an embodied speaker. Who experiences less anxiety because of Proctorio?

What behaviors are defined as "suspicious" for the Proctorio algorithm? What is the range of "normal" human behaviors as understood by Proctorio?

In what way is this compatible with the mandate of a "neutral" testing environment???

I'm sorry, I just can't let this go -- there is no such thing as a "neutral" "TESTING ENVIRONMENT!" Neutral how and to whom? Taking a test under any conditions, but especially these, seems to preclude "neutrality."

What makes a living room or dining room a "neutral area?!" Also -- assumptions about how many rooms someone has available.

I definitely always wanted to be an "exam administrator" when I grew up.

I was not aware of the distinction between "facial recognition" and "facial detection." Both of these practices are extremely problematic. And I am suspicious about how the company uses the data it collects, even if their practice is not formally categorized as "facial recognition."

Why is the door being left open here to more invasive identity verification technology without consent? Are there plans to implement biometric surveillance or facial recognition which matches to personal identity?

I am curious about the data that is used in Proctorio's facial detection. What databases or services are they using?

I wonder how Proctorio makes claims about learning outcomes that appear divorced from the actual design and content of assessments. One underlying assumption seems to be that proctored exams in and of themselves are preferable to other forms of assessment.

Does proctoring an exam somehow improve the exam itself? Does it improve what the exam is measuring? Does it improve how the exam supports student learning?