Room scan by proctoring tools violates protection against unreasonable searches Ohio court rules (US const 4th amendment) Univ defense was 'it's standard industry practice' and 'others did not complain'. In other words no actual moral consideration was made by univ. This is so bad, even without the fact that a third party keeps the recording of the video scan of this student's bedroom.

Where there's a need for remote test taking, why try to copy over the cheating controls from in-person test taking? How about adapting the test content on the assumption that students will have material available to them during the test, reducing the proctoring need to only assuring the actual student is taking the test.

assessments and academic integrity

the pitfalls of online proctoring

Remote proctoring, or online proctoring, means to use either human proctors or automated processes to monitor the delivery of a digital assessment through microphone and web camera using the internet.

A common solution was to deliver the test

through a locked digital assessment platform, and proctor the students via a mobile phone from which the students log in to a digital meeting room with video and a microphone to show what they are doing. Normally, one teacher proctored a whole class with 25 to 30 students, which is more than recommended

cheating

This article is ostensibly a response to the use of proctoring software in higher education.

But in order to do that properly the author has also delved into learning and assessment.

It's a well-written piece that questions some of our taken-for-granted assumptions around assessment.

This goes both ways. A teacher who believes that their job is to control access to specialised information, and to control assessment may use technology to close down learning opportunities (e.g. by banning the use of Wikipedia, YouTube, etc.) and even insisting on the installation of surveillance (proctoring) software on students' personal computers.

Again, you can argue that technology in itself doesn't make the difference.

proctoring

Given all the iGen research about the growing amount of anxiety among students, this seems very interesting indeed.

I'd like to see more reporting on this - who exactly are these proctors we're outsourcing our teaching to? How are they screened? What's their code of conduct? How is a complaint registered?

Ashley Norris is the Chief Academic Officer at ProctorU, an organization that provides online exam proctoring for schools. This article has an interesting overview of the negative side of technology advancements and what that has meant for student's ability to cheat. While the article does culminate as an ad, of sorts, for ProctorU, it is an interesting read and sparks thoughts on ProctorU's use of both human monitors for testing but also their integration of Artificial Intelligence into the process.

Rating: 9/10.

Even the NYT got interested, however briefly.