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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.