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Online Colleges Could Spy On Students – By Law
skeazer writes "Tucked away in a 1,200-page bill now in Congress is a small paragraph that could lead distance-education institutions to require spy cameras in their students' homes. It sounds Orwellian, but the paragraph — part of legislation renewing the Higher Education Act — is all but assured of becoming law by the fall. No one in Congress objects to it."
I haven't read TFA, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that by "spy cameras in their homes" they mean a camera attached to the computer while school work (or at least tests) is being done in an effort to make sure the degree goes to the person doing the work?
As long as it isn't required to be on except while the student is doing work that would take place under the eyes of a professor or TA in a "real" college and as long as enrollment is voluntary I can't imagine it's really that objectionable.
Does a line appended to your comment give your post meaning in and of itself, or only in relation to those without?
They can't stop the cheating in person...what makes them think they can stop it over the internet?
Yes, you can either buy back the footage for a minimal cost or cease activity when watched by administrators.
In all seriousness, isn't this why we have proctors, so that someone can watch you while you perform tasks required for your grade?
This article is setting off my FUDDAR. Summary written to make the new law sound worse than it likely will be, and ommiting the reasons behind it.
First of all, I don't see a problem with an online school implementing this on their own, exclusively for exams, as long as the device can be disconnected and software removed afterwards. Don't like that? Try another school. Capitalism wins.
The real issue, I believe, is that the government seems to think it has the right to require that these devices be used. This will keep the price of these devices high and the slope nice and slippery.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I read TFA as up to the point where people started screaming "unfair". After reading about the devices they're considering to prevent cheating (like blocking http traffic on the client machine), I don't think there's anything that a KVM and second computer wouldn't be able to get past. Just remember to keep the camera BEHIND the monitor.
How can you bundle a bunch of laws together and then have people vote for/against the whole lot?
That just can't work and is probably the reason the USA is so fucked up right now.
That's why students need to pay for their own proctoring. They already pay for textbooks, transportation, internet, etc. This is just something else to be not subsidized.
Disclaimer: I no longer work in Distance Ed.
School is for learning things...and that is the problem.
The increasing availability of higher education (through convenient and affordable online colleges, as just one example) is resulting in an increasingly high percentage of highly educated people in the work force.
Unfortunately, the number of jobs that actually require that kind of education is not increasing at the same rate.
What happens when supply increases faster than demand? The price drops.
That means that more employers are requiring higher education for jobs that don't really need it, and are paying less and less for the jobs that actually do need it. Thus, all the workers lose out, because now one MUST have a higher education just to do a mundane job that won't use any of those skills and won't pay you enough to dig yourself out of the debt you incurred from all the student loans.
Don't believe me? Look at the economy in India.
Enterprising cheaters will find ways around all of that and create an industry unto itself. One person quoted points out, "How do professors know that a student enrolled in a large lecture class is the same one handing in an assignment or test?" The answer is, of course, they don't. I knew a dude years ago that cheated SAT/GRE type tests by physically going in and taking them for someone else.
If someone is really concerned though, I am sure you can unplug the camera set-up while you aren't taking a test.
rather than getting a fancy piece of paper
While it may be true for you that school is for learning things, it really depends upon which school and program you mean. The majority of the training/education industry (as far as the government is concerned) is about meeting industry's HR needs, and has nothing to do with the lofty goals of education for the benefit of the individual.
Identity-proving trivia questions have been around for a while. Ever try to access your credit report online? It's just a matter of time before other websites that really want to know your identity (and you have a reason to want the site to know it's you) jump on to this technology.
But the more it's used, the less those secrets become. Everyone and his uncle demands to know my mother's maiden name. No everyone and his uncle knows it.
Why does this need to be a law? Can't employers simply choose to reject someone who graduates from an institution that makes no effort to verify who is taking their students' tests?
Why should the government create a law that requires that schools enforce no-cheating?
It's so some politician can brag, "I worked with congress to pass a law that eliminated cheating in American universities!"
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Sorry to disappoint you with reality. Higher education stopped being about learning things and bettering oneself about the same time that having a higher education became something necessary for the purpose of being able to support an average family with a 'normal' lifestyle.
Of coarse it started when the norm of morality shifted from one in which 'professionals' doctors, nurses, educated people ,became people who expected to be highly paid for their skills as opposed to acting altruistically, which happened as an effect of the materialistic atheism movement of the 40's and 50's in the United State at least. Prior to that most education included a moral component of altruism and one could not gradate without being believed by the professors to meet it.
The idea that degrees are taken for self betterment and the betterment of society is a hang over from the days when graduating from an institution of higher learning meant you were held to a specific ethical and moral code that was taught as part of the institution.
The fallacy is fairly easily rebuffed nowadays by the simple fact that most people view moral education as part of public education as a bad thing. So with changing world views so changed the purpose of higher education.
The bulk of degrees today are taken for vocational aka $$$ purposes and have nothing to do with actually wanting to learn the material presented in the coarse.
Of coarse no one stops you from taking classes because you want to make yourself better today, most courses offered at university do little to help learn anything more the vocational skills however. So you must ask yourself better in what way? Mostly the answer is better at making money.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
I can guarantee you that real institutions of higher learning don't give a shit about online "distance" learning, or cheating. My alma mater is among the top in terms of number of graduates who go on to get doctorates in their fields, but does not proctor exams. All exams are take-home, with the obvious exception of your oral thesis defense (if you can call that an exam).
Any institution providing a real education won't care if you cheat on tests because the faculty have more important things to do and it would be insulting to assume you'd cheat yourself out of all the time and money you invested to take the class in the first place.
These designers need to get a clue. Cameras will not replace human proctors any time soon.
Instant distance learning cheat:
1) Plug magic 360-degree anti-cheating fingerprint camera into laptop.
2) Sit down at desk with other laptop.
3) Bring your buddy the anthropology-whiz-for-hire into the room. Hand him the laptop from step 1.
4) Buddy gets under desk and takes test. You spend an hour on IRC basking in the epic lulz.
This
It's more like the government wants its slice of the pie (ie, tax revenue). Online/overseas gambling is harder to collect taxes on... so they ban it instead.
Why do you think making your own liquor (moonshine) is generally illegal? It's certainly not morality concerns...
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
I majored in English and minored in Fine Art at a state University.
My current business card reads "Lead Systems Engineer" -- and yes, it's a real business card from a real company that has very large very real clients. I have a lovely office, with a door and windows and everything.
Every interview I've ever had (3 in the 8 years since I graduated), I've mentioned that I went to a university to learn things I couldn't learn anywhere else. It probably helps that I've been a technology junkie since I was a kid, worked part-time in tech the entire time I was in college, and that I took a few CS classes on the side.
I realize I'm a statistical anomoly. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy saying "If I wanted career training, I would have gone to DeVry."
"Fine then, we'll put a webcam in whatever room(s) in your house has/have your computer(s),"
Did you get the memo? No one is forcing you to do this. You can unplug it anytime you want. It is only for testing. Don't want to be monitored, go to a proctored environment. Like near me? I can have you come into my office for a small fee and watch that you aren't cheating.
I majored in English[...]
I realize I'm a statistical anomoly."
Because English-majors are usually better at spelling ? :)
Once again, the Federal government is operating far outside of its Constitutionally prescribed limits.
Apologists will try to cite one or more such clauses as the general welfare or interstate commerce but the truth of the matter is that we would all be better off if the government minded its own business.
Before "internet" colleges, there were correspondence colleges. Still "distance learning", and still (in some cases) accredited.
The Internet doesn't change anything there at all. So where were their Orwellian rules before?
This nonsense is just another example of blaming the internet for something that has always existed, and using that as an excuse to further intrude.
What a crock.
Funny--I went to a pretty expensive university, and we never had a single proctor at any exam, ever. Something called an "honor code" or something...
What's really going on here, though, is that universities no longer exist to educate, but rather to certify. It does not seem unreasonable to me that a corporation should be responsible for evaluating a prospective employee. However (perhaps unsurprisingly), corporations would love to be able to offload that little business expense onto someone else.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
I can't believe how many people are focusing on the fact that it just won't work and is a pointless idea, and not the fact that it is completely invasive and fundamentally wrong.
What if they do come up with a similar idea that works? Say for instance the 360-degree camera you speak of. That's just that much more invasive. Also, when was the last time the U.S. government did anything sane?
I agree that it is ridiculous how much it costs to attend college, but having a faculty and cirriculum is important. And if you notice, the professors making $40,000 a year at community colleges don't exactly have their hearts in it.
I've taken distance classes and have to say that I could have learned just as much just as quickly by reading Wikipedia articles. The faculty doesn't do shit for you when taking an online class except to provide you with a piece of paper that "proves" you know the material. Which is the only reason most people attend college. So this is their latest attempt to prevent cheating? Most of the companies I've spoken with don't even take distance learning seriously anyway.
The path to enlightenment is truly through homemade drugs!