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Privacy and Safety in Remote Learning Environments

BLEND-ONLINE : Call for Chapter Proposals– Privacy and Remote Learning

Digital Scholarship Initiatives at Middle Tennessee State University invites you to propose a chapter for our forthcoming book.

Working book title: Privacy and Safety in Remote Learning Environments

Proposal submission deadline: January 21, 2022

Interdisciplinary perspectives are highly encouraged

Topics may include but are not limited to:

  • Privacy policies of 3rd party EdTech platforms (Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Schoology, etc)
  • Parental “spying” and classroom privacy
  • Family privacy and synchronous online schooling
  • Online harassment among students (private chats, doxing, social media, etc)
  • Cameras in student private spaces
  • Surveillance of student online activities
  • Exam proctoring software and privacy concerns
  • Personally Identifiable Information in online learning systems and susceptibility to cybercriminals
  • Privacy, storage, and deletion policies for recordings and data
  • Handling data removal requests from students
  • Appointing a privacy expert in schools, universities, or districts
  • How and why to perform security/privacy audits
  • Student attitudes about online privacy
  • Instructor privacy/safety concerns
  • Libraries: privacy policies of ebook platforms
  • Libraries: online reference services and transcripts
  • Identity authentication best practices
  • Learning analytics and “big data” in higher education

More details, timelines, and submission instructions are available at dsi.mtsu.edu/cfpBook2022

AI use in education

EDUCAUSE QuickPoll Results: Artificial Intelligence Use in Higher Education

D. Christopher Brooks” Friday, June 11, 2021

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2021/6/educause-quickpoll-results-artificial-intelligence-use-in-higher-education

AI is being used to monitor students and their work. The most prominent uses of AI in higher education are attached to applications designed to protect or preserve academic integrity through the use of plagiarism-detection software (60%) and proctoring applications (42%) (see figure 1).

The chatbots are coming! A sizable percentage (36%) of respondents reported that chatbots and digital assistants are in use at least somewhat on their campuses, with another 17% reporting that their institutions are in the planning, piloting, and initial stages of use (see figure 2). The use of chatbots in higher education by admissions, student affairs, career services, and other student success and support units is not entirely new, but the pandemic has likely contributed to an increase in their use as they help students get efficient, relevant, and correct answers to their questions without long waits.Footnote10 Chatbots may also liberate staff from repeatedly responding to the same questions and reduce errors by deploying updates immediately and universally.

AI is being used for student success tools such as identifying students who are at-risk academically (22%) and sending early academic warnings (16%); another 14% reported that their institutions are in the stage of planning, piloting, and initial usage of AI for these tasks.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents said that ineffective data management and integration (72%) and insufficient technical expertise (71%) present at least a moderate challenge to AI implementation. Financial concerns (67%) and immature data governance (66%) also pose challenges. Insufficient leadership support (56%) is a foundational challenge that is related to each of the previous listed challenges in this group.

Current use of AI

  • Chatbots for informational and technical support, HR benefits questions, parking questions, service desk questions, and student tutoring
  • Research applications, conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and data science research (my italics)
  • Library services (my italics)
  • Recruitment of prospective students
  • Providing individual instructional material pathways, assessment feedback, and adaptive learning software
  • Proctoring and plagiarism detection
  • Student engagement support and nudging, monitoring well-being, and predicting likelihood of disengaging the institution
  • Detection of network attacks
  • Recommender systems

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more on AI in education in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=artificial+intelligence+education

ProctorU scraps fully automated remote proctoring

https://www.highereddive.com/news/proctoru-scraps-fully-automated-remote-proctoring/600708/

Online proctoring companies have come under scrutiny for using AI that flags possible cheating too frequently.

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more on proctoring in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=proctor

Chegg and academic integrity

https://www.dailyemerald.com/news/students-cheat-with-online-learning-service-professors-hope-to-identify-users/article_552d56f4-5a31-11eb-98ae-879264ec0299.html

Services like Chegg have become more accessible to students during unproctored exams in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, causing what UO chemistry professor Shannon Boettcher believes is a “huge problem with academic dishonesty across the nation in the light of remote learning and COVID-19.”

he Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s notice and takedown process requires that service providers remove material that a copyright owner identifies on their website through a valid notice of copyright infringement or become subject to potential secondary liability for assisting with copyright infringement, according to Copyright Alliance.

Chegg Inc. has been sued twice in federal court for claims of copyright infringement, denying allegations in both instances.

Apart from its subscription services, Chegg rents and sells textbooks. The publishing company John Wiley & Sons Inc. filed a lawsuit against Chegg on Dec. 18, 2018, in Manhattan U.S. District Court, alleging that Chegg sold counterfeit versions of its textbooks.

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This $12 Billion Company Is Getting Rich Off Students Cheating Their Way Through Covid

https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2021/01/28/this-12-billion-company-is-getting-rich-off-students-cheating-their-way-through-covid

Chegg is based in Santa Clara, California, but the heart of its operation is in India, where it employs more than 70,000 experts with advanced math, science, technology and engineering degrees. The experts, who work freelance, are online 24/7, supplying step-by-step answers to questions posted by subscribers (sometimes answered in less than 15 minutes).

Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig has profited handsomely. His holdings in Chegg plus after-tax proceeds from stock sales add up to $300 million. Rosensweig, who declined to speak to Forbes, has said that Chegg Study was “not built” for cheating. He describes it instead as the equivalent of an asynchronous, always-on tutor, ready to help students with detailed answers to problems. In a 2019 interview, he said higher education needs to adjust to the on-demand economy, the way Uber or Amazon have.

Throughout the pandemic, schools have spent millions on remote proctoring, a controversial practice in which colleges pay private companies like Honorlock and Examity to surveil students while they take tests.

Chegg Study was enjoying steady growth and little competition. Its only serious rival, privately held Course Hero, is a much smaller operation, valued at $1.1 billion, that generates most of its answers from students.

My note:

such proliferation would not have been possible, if the middle and upper administration has been more supportive of faculty when misconduct is detected. If the administration turns blind eye due to “enrollment” and “retention” priorities and curbs faculty reports regarding academic dishonesty, the industry naturally fills out the gap between a mere syllabus statement and inability to act upon it.

There is plenty of lipservice regarding “personalized learning,” but the reality is overworked faculty, who do not have the opportunity to spend sufficient time with students, less to educate them about plagiarism, cheating and similar “auxiliary” trends besides the content of the course.

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more on cheating in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=cheating

Proctorio

Students Are Rebelling Against Eye-Tracking Exam Surveillance Tools

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7wxvd/students-are-rebelling-against-eye-tracking-exam-surveillance-tools

Algorithmic proctoring software has been around for several years, but its use exploded as the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to quickly transition to remote learning. Proctoring companies cite studies estimating that between 50 and 70 percent of college students will attempt some form of cheating, and warn that cheating will be rampant if students are left unmonitored in their own homes.

Like many other tech companies, they also balk at the suggestion that they are responsible for how their software is used. While their algorithms flag behavior that the designers have deemed suspicious, these companies argue that the ultimate determination of whether cheating occurred rests in the hands of the class instructor.

As more evidence emerges about how the programs work, and fail to work, critics say the tools are bound to hurt low-income students, students with disabilities, students with children or other dependents, and other groups who already face barriers in higher education.

“Each academic department has almost complete agency to design their curriculum as far as I know, and each professor has the freedom to design their own exams and use whatever monitoring they see fit,” Rohan Singh, a computer engineering student at Michigan State University, told Motherboard.

after students approached faculty members at the University of California Santa Barbara, the faculty association sent a letter to the school’s administration raising concerns about whether ProctorU would share student data with third parties. 
In response, a ProctorU attorney threatened to sue the faculty association for defamation and violating copyright law (because the association had used the company’s name and linked to its website). He also accused the faculty association of “directly impacting efforts to mitigate civil disruption across the United States” by interfering with education during a national emergency, and said he was sending his complaint to the state’s Attorney General.

here is a link to a community discussion regarding this and similar software use:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RemakingtheUniversity/permalink/1430416163818409/

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more on Proctorio in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=proctorio
“Some of the more prominent companies offering these services include ProctorioRespondusProctorUHonorLockKryterion Global Testing Solutions, and Examity.”

Proctor-ring April’s Fool

Introducing Proctor-ring

Posted by  |April 2019 /

Announcing Proctor-ring, a new biometric tool in the war on cheating.

Starting today, Online Learning has partnered with the Academic Integrity Task Force and that import shop in the strip mall on Hwy 99 to provide a new, low cost option for improving the integrity of your exams. The Proctor-ring uses mood ring technology to identify common changes in human emotion that have been calibrated to identify academic dishonesty. While many vendors will sell you very expensive tools to combat cheating, the Proctor-ring is cost effective and scales well across all disciplines.

The proctorring color chart explains what colors are associated with which emotion or breach in academic honesty.a test taker is wearing a gauche ring with a stone jewel while taking a paper exam

new D2L Brightspace features

What: Overview of new D2L Brightspace features
When: Monday, April 9 at 10:00 AM
Please join us to learn about the new features that will be available in D2L Brightspace as of June 2, 2018. The session will be recorded.

D2L cloud is the big news. stcloudstate.learn.minnstate.edu will be the link to log into the cloud.

Here are the latest updates on Minnesota State’s move to D2L Brightspace cloud services.
Review a recording (44:07) or slides from the session.  A comprehensive list of features is also available for faculty. This document will be updated again after April 10 and May 7 releases are available at our QA cloud sites.

To explore these new features on your own, go to your “quality assurance” (QA) test site in D2L’s cloud available athttps://YourCampusQA.brightspace.comhttps://stcloudstate.brightspace.com

Quizzes, HTML editor and intelligent agents have videos featuring new stuff.

  • HTML Editor – Edit images in the editor. See video (2:30)
  • Intelligent Agents – See video (4:36)
  • Quiz/Question Library – The ability to search the text of quiz questions. See video (7:00)
  • Quizzes – Add a quiz due date, in addition to a start and end date.
  • Quiz Taking – Students start and submit a quiz with fewer clicks.
  • Manage Dates Tool –  ‘Due Dates’ are now included.
  • Additional features will be rolled out to the QA cloud on April 10 (version 10.8.0) and May 7 (version 10.8.1)
  • ePortfolio -“A digital showcase for the learning journey. It helps you document the experience, reflect on it, and share ideas and achievements as they happen.”  D2L has provided an overview video and a video to help you navigate this new tool for Minnesota State campuses.  Look for an invitation to an overview session on April 18.

IP restriction, which is supposed to alleviate proctoring issues. But this will work only for oncampus quizzes. not for online classes.

The Quiz library being moved to the cloud. Does this mean that the Quiz Library can be shared across institutions? E.g. if faculty from one university is teaching biology and has developed a quiz library content, it can be shared with the content of a faculty from another university? All bells and whistles so far are only secondary to the fact that content generation remains most important for faculty and if faculty can share their test banks, I see this as the most advantageous of moving to a cloud.

eportfolio – new D2L tool. April 18 overview scheduled. so, isn’t in collision with TK20? I, personally, think that LInkedIn is the way to go. I will not mention eFolio MN, since it is a losing bet.
So, how we reconcile the existence of several platforms for eportofolio?

SSO. single sign on. Adobe Connect, Mediaspace and service desk are already on SSO. signing in one application allows to move to D2L without having to sign on again.

https://mnscu.sharepoint.com/sites/ims/SitePages/Home.aspx

on that site, there are resources for faculty: https://mnscu.sharepoint.com/sites/IMS/SitePages/Faculty%20Resources.aspx

Advancing Online Education in Minnesota State

Advancing Online Education in Minnesota State

Advancing Online Education – Full Report-1s94jfi

Defining Online Education
The term “online education” has been used as a blanket phrase for a number of fundamentally different  educational models. Phrases like distance education, e-Learning, massively open online courses (MOOCs),  hybrid/blended learning, immersive learning, personalized and/or adaptive learning, master courses,  computer based instruction/tutorials, digital literacy and even competency based learning have all colored the  definitions the public uses to define “online education.”

online education” as having the following characteristics:

  • Students who enroll in online courses or programs may reside near or far from the campus(es) providing the course(s) or program.
  • A student’s course load may include offering where attendance is required in person or where an instructor/students are not required to be in the same geographic location.
  • Students may enroll in one or more individual online course offerings provided by one or more institutions to that may or may not satisfy degree/program requirements.
  • Student may pursue a certificate, program, or degree where a substantial number of courses, perhaps all, are taken without being in the same geographic location as others.

Organizational Effectiveness Research Group (OERG),

As the workgroup considered strategies that could advance online education, they were asked to use the primary and secondary sources listed above to support the fifteen (15) strategies that were developed

define a goal as a broad aspirational outcome that we strive to attain. Four goal areas guide this document. These goal areas include access, quality, affordability and collaboration. Below is a description of each goal area and the assumptions made for Minnesota State.

  1. Access
    Over twenty percent of existing Minnesota State students enroll in online courses as a way to satisfy course requirements. For some students, online education is a convenient option; for others, online is the only option available
  2. Quality
    The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) accreditation guidelines review the standards and processes institutions have in place to ensure quality in all of educational offerings, including online.
    There are a number of ways in which institutions have demonstrated quality in individual courses and programs including the evaluation of course design, evaluation of instruction and assessment of student
  3. Affordability
    a differential tuition rate to courses that are offered online. If we intend to have online education continue to be an affordable solution for students, Minnesota State and its institutions must be good stewards of these funds and ensure these funds support online education.
    Online education requires different or additional services that need to be funded
    transparency is important in tuition setting
  4. Collaboration
    Distance Minnesota is comprised of four institutions Alexandria Technical & Community College, Bemidji State University, Northland Community & Technical College, and Northwest Technical College) which collaborate to offer student support services, outreach, e-advising, faculty support, and administrative assistance for online education offerings.

 Strategies

strategies are defined as the overall plan used to identify how we can achieve each goal area.

Action Steps

Strategy 1: Ensure all student have online access to high quality support services

students enrolled in online education experiences should have access to “three areas of support including academic (such as tutoring, advising, and library); administrative (such as financial aid, and disability support); and technical (such as hardware reliability and uptime, and help desk).”
As a system, students have access to a handful of statewide services, include tutoring services through Smarthinking and test proctoring sites.

Strategy 2: Establish and maintain measures to assess and support student readiness for online education

A persistent issue for campuses has been to ensure that students who enroll in online course are aware of the expectations required to participate actively in an online course.

In addition to adhering to course expectations, students must have the technical competencies needed to perform the tasks required for online courses

Strategy 3: Ensure students have access to online and blended learning experiences in course and program offerings.

Strategy 4: These experiences should support and recognize diverse learning needs by applying a universal design for learning framework.

The OERG report included several references to efforts made by campuses related to the providing support and resources for universal design for learning, the workgroup did not offer any action steps.

Strategy 5: Expand access to professional development resources and services for faculty members

As online course are developed and while faculty members teach online courses, it is critical that faculty members have on-demand access to resources like technical support and course assistance.

5A. Statewide Faculty Support Services – Minnesota State provide its institutions and their faculty members with access to a centralized support center during extended hours with staff that can assist faculty members synchronously via phone, chat, text/SMS, or web conference

5C. Instructional Design and Technology Services – Establish a unit that will provide course design and instructional technology services to selected programs and courses from Minnesota State institutions.

Quality

Strategy 1: Establish and maintain a statewide approach for professional development for online education.

1B. Faculty Mentoring – Provide and sustain faculty mentoring programs that promote effective online pedagogy.

1C. Professional development for support staff – including instructional designers, D2L Brightspace site administrators and campus trainers, etc.)

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more on online education in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=online+education

topics for IM260

proposed topics for IM 260 class

  • Media literacy. Differentiated instruction. Media literacy guide.
    Fake news as part of media literacy. Visual literacy as part of media literacy. Media literacy as part of digital citizenship.
  • Web design / web development
    the roles of HTML5, CSS, Java Script, PHP, Bootstrap, JQuery, React and other scripting languages and libraries. Heat maps and other usability issues; website content strategy. THE MODEL-VIEW-CONTROLLER (MVC) design pattern
  • Social media for institutional use. Digital Curation. Social Media algorithms. Etiquette Ethics. Mastodon
    I hosted a LITA webinar in the fall of 2016 (four weeks); I can accommodate any information from that webinar for the use of the IM students
  • OER and instructional designer’s assistance to book creators.
    I can cover both the “library part” (“free” OER, copyright issues etc) and the support / creative part of an OER book / textbook
  • Big Data.” Data visualization. Large scale visualization. Text encoding. Analytics, Data mining. Unizin. Python, R in academia.
    I can introduce the students to the large idea of Big Data and its importance in lieu of the upcoming IoT, but also departmentalize its importance for academia, business, etc. From infographics to heavy duty visualization (Primo X-Services API. JSON, Flask).
  • NetNeutrality, Digital Darwinism, Internet economy and the role of your professional in such environment
    I can introduce students to the issues, if not familiar and / or lead a discussion on a rather controversial topic
  • Digital assessment. Digital Assessment literacy.
    I can introduce students to tools, how to evaluate and select tools and their pedagogical implications
  • Wikipedia
    a hands-on exercise on working with Wikipedia. After the session, students will be able to create Wikipedia entries thus knowing intimately the process of Wikipedia and its information.
  • Effective presentations. Tools, methods, concepts and theories (cognitive load). Presentations in the era of VR, AR and mixed reality. Unity.
    I can facilitate a discussion among experts (your students) on selection of tools and their didactically sound use to convey information. I can supplement the discussion with my own findings and conclusions.
  • eConferencing. Tools and methods
    I can facilitate a discussion among your students on selection of tools and comparison. Discussion about the their future and their place in an increasing online learning environment
  • Digital Storytelling. Immersive Storytelling. The Moth. Twine. Transmedia Storytelling
    I am teaching a LIB 490/590 Digital Storytelling class. I can adapt any information from that class to the use of IM students
  • VR, AR, Mixed Reality.
    besides Mark Gill, I can facilitate a discussion, which goes beyond hardware and brands, but expand on the implications for academia and corporate education / world
  • IoT , Arduino, Raspberry PI. Industry 4.0
  • Instructional design. ID2ID
    I can facilitate a discussion based on the Educause suggestions about the profession’s development
  • Microcredentialing in academia and corporate world. Blockchain
  • IT in K12. How to evaluate; prioritize; select. obsolete trends in 21 century schools. K12 mobile learning
  • Podcasting: past, present, future. Beautiful Audio Editor.
    a definition of podcasting and delineation of similar activities; advantages and disadvantages.
  • Digital, Blended (Hybrid), Online teaching and learning: facilitation. Methods and techniques. Proctoring. Online students’ expectations. Faculty support. Asynch. Blended Synchronous Learning Environment
  • Gender, race and age in education. Digital divide. Xennials, Millennials and Gen Z. generational approach to teaching and learning. Young vs old Millennials. Millennial employees.
  • Privacy, [cyber]security, surveillance. K12 cyberincidents. Hackers.
  • Gaming and gamification. Appsmashing. Gradecraft
  • Lecture capture, course capture.
  • Bibliometrics, altmetrics
  • Technology and cheating, academic dishonest, plagiarism, copyright.

biometric authentication online ed

Wiklund, M., Mozelius, P., Westing, T., & Norberg, L. (2016). Biometric Belt and Braces for Authentication in Distance Education. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309548915_Biometric_Belt_and_Braces_for_Authentication_in_Distance_Education
Abstract
a need for new techniques to handle the problem in online environments. To achieve zero cheating is hard (or impossible) without repelling not only cheaters but also those students who do not cheat, where a zero ‐ tolerance emphasis also would risk inhibiting students’ intrinsic motivation. Several studies indicate that existing virtual learning environments do not provide the features needed to control that the intended student is the one taking the online exam. Biometric Belt and Braces for Authentication in Distance Education.
One approach to prevent student’s dishonesty is the university code of honour. This is a set of rules describing what actions are not permitted and the consequences for students taking such actions. Another way of preventing cheating is the use of proctors during written exams. Even while using such codes of honour and proctors, universities still have found many students to cheat. Biometric Belt and Braces for Authentication in Distance Education.
Neutralisation is the phenomenon when a person rationalises his or her dishonest behaviour with arguments like “I can do this because the work load within this course is just too overwhelming” or “I can do this because I have a half ‐ time job on the side which gives me less study time than the other students have”. By doing so the student puts the blame for cheating on external factors rather than on himself, and also protects himself from the blame of others (Haines et al. 1986). This neutralises the behavior in the sense that the person’s feelings of shame are reduced or even eliminated. Haines et al. (1986 Biometric Belt and Braces for Authentication in Distance Education.
Simply asking participants to read a code of honour when they had the opportunity to cheat reduced dishonesty. Also whether one signed the code of honour or just read it influenced cheating. The Shu et al. (2011) study suggests that opportunity and knowledge of ethical standards are two factors that impact students’ ethical decision about cheating. This is in line with the results in (McCabe, Trevino and Butterfield 2001), showing that if students regularly are reminded of the university’s code of honour, they are less likely to cheat Biometric Belt and Braces for Authentication in Distance Education.
For an online course setting, Gearhart (2001) suggest that teachers should develop a guideline for “good practices”.
In online examination there are reports of students hiring other persons to increase their scores (Flior & Kowalski, 2010) and there is a need for new enhanced authentication tools (Ullah, Xiao & Lilley, 2012). For companies and Internet environments the process of authentication is often completed through the use of logon identification with passwords and the assumption of the password to guarantee that the user is authentic (Ramzan, 2007), but logins and passwords can be borrowed (Bailie & Jortberg, 2009). The discussion on how to provide enhanced authentication in online examination has led to many suggested solutions; four of them are: Biometric Belt and Braces for Authentication in Distance Education.
  • Challenge Questions: with questions based on third ‐ party data ƒ
  • Face ‐ to ‐ Face Proctored Exam: with government or institution issued identification ƒ
  • Web Video Conference Proctor: audio and video conference proctoring via webcam and screen monitoring service with live, certified proctors ƒ
  • Biometrics and Web Video Recording: with unique biometrics combined with the recording of student in exam via webcam

An idea for online courses is that assessment should not only be a one way process where the students get grades and feedback. The examination process should also be a channel for students’ feedback to teachers and course instructors (Mardanian & Mozelius, 2011). New online methods could be combined with traditional assessment in an array of techniques aligned to the learning outcomes (Runyon and Von Holzen, 2005). Examples of summative and formative assessment in an online course could be a mix of: Biometric Belt and Braces for Authentication in Distance Education.

  • Multiple choice questions (MCQ) tests, automatically corrected in a virtual learning environment ƒ
  • Term papers or essays analysed by the course instructors ƒ
  • Individual or group assignments posted in digital drop ‐ boxes ƒ
  • Oral or written tests conducted in the presence of the instructor or through videoconferences (Dikli, 2003)

Authors’ suggestion is a biometric belt and braces model with a combination of scanned facial coordinates and voice recognition, where only a minimum of biometric data has to be stored. Even if the model is based on biometrics with a medium to low grade of uniqueness and permanence, it would be reliable enough for authentication in online courses if two (or more) types of biometrics are combined with the presented dialogue based examination using an interaction/obser ‐ vation process via web cameras. Biometric Belt and Braces for Authentication in Distance Education.

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more on identification in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=identification

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more on proctoring and detecting cheating:

http://www.wgu.edu/blogpost/innocent-red-flags-caught-by-online-exam-proctors

voices from the other side:
http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-to-cheat-online-exam-proctoring.html

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2016/04/06/how-students-try-to-bamboozle-online-proctors.aspx

http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2014/06/17/think-twice-before-cheating-in-online-courses

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