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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."
Basically, this is talking about requiring webcams or biometric devices when you take an online exam. Whether or not that's a good idea, it hardly qualifies as "Orwellian". Timothy and skeazer seem to think this is going to involve 24/7 cameras in your bedroom or something like that.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
In all seriousness, isn't this why we have proctors, so that someone can watch you while you perform tasks required for your grade?
Simple answer: cost. I work at a community college, and although we do have an academic testing centre -- the priority is to provide an alternate testing environment for students with disabilities. The secondary priority is students who miss tests for legitimate reasons (medical, weather, etc.).
There simply isn't capacity to allow every student in every online course to come onto campus to complete their assessments. It isn't built into the costing/tuition.
Employers generally don't trust their employees working at home. They think that without a tyrant-boss to keep an eye on them, most people will slack off. If these cameras were a regular part of telecommuting, more companies would support it.
Eventually you get to the point where the government asks nicely if they can watch. Then they tell the companies that they WILL watch. Then they insist cameras be put in place if telecommuting is even a remote possibility for an employee. Then they eventually get around to passing laws to make it legal. So it won't conflict with the Constitution.
For any "online" institution I've known, the tests need to be done at an approved institute under supervision, and after presenting proper ID, etc.
You might be able to fob off assignments on somebody else, but in a real school institution you could do this anyhow after classes.
For any "online" institution I've known, the tests need to be done at an approved institute under supervision, and after presenting proper ID, etc.
Well, that's the thing... they're trying to break that restriction.
From TFA: "The paragraph is actually about clamping down on cheating. It says that an institution that offers an online program must prove that an enrolled student is the same person who does the work."
And how is a camera in my home proof? If I have access to the hardware, I can send any video footage I want. And as for proof, there's no proof that I do any assignment that takes place out of class at traditional universities either. It sound more like it will create a market for test taking centers that contract out to universities that offer distance learning. Fuck those who live out in the boonies.
Called Securexam Remote Proctor, it's about the size of a large paperweight and plugs into a standard port on a home computer. The pedestal includes a groove for scanning fingerprints, a tiny microphone, and a camera. The sphere reflects a 360-degree view around the test taker, which the camera picks up.
Nevermind proctoring, how about using this for round-table podcasts? Instead of a multi-camera shoot, put this on the table in front of everyone and do your cuts to who is talking all in post.
Students pay $150 for the device.
Losing the fingerprint scanner would drop the price a bit, and audio for each panelist could still be recorded using a multi-track recorder. But you may need HD resolution for capture in order to get SD-quality shots for editing, which you don't need for simple monitoring.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
"Won't that day of reckoning come when you show up to your first job and the boss asks you to modify a Java program and you give him a blank stare?"
No, when it get known that universities are putting out students that can't do the job, they are penalized for this.
Students don't sign up for the universities -- they would if they could because they think it is an easy degree, but parents generally pay the bills and they research this stuff.
Beyond this, a lot of post-graduation research goes into assessing a program. How much is the average student making? How quickly do they find jobs? Are they still holding a job in their field at 1 year, 5 years, 10 years?
The gov't gets involved because they back student loans. Lots of defaults on student loans. If a university has a default rate of say 50% (I'm making up this number), they stop getting loans sent to them. A good friend wanted to go to an experimental psychological program this fall -- only to find that he can't get a loan. Not going to happen.
My day job is in student testing...I get to hear all of this every day...we get all the blame if students are doing poorly, but never any of the credit. I don't like what the law is doing, but it is a start. It is the start of accountability. Beyond that, I really don't think anyone lives anywhere that is all that inconvenient to get to some place that can proctor an exam with the exception of those whom are disabled. Heck, I gave a few exams with a web cam for a student in Iraq this year (I also had a ranking officer present to make certain that what I couldn't see was still legit!)
So lots of reasons for the gov't to get involved. As a tax payer, I hope they are only propping up universities that are churning out students that are qualified...and you should expect the same.
They won't.
Students with dialup will either have to upgrade the connection or come to the college to do the exam if better connection is unavailable in their area.
That is one of the reasons my college is still against implementing some kind of a video link during a test.
It is not connection heavy just on the student - imagine maintaining couple of thousands of simultaneous video links with resolution high enough to spot possible cheat sheets?
Like... 4pt text printed cheat sheets stickers on your monitor.
There is a MUCH simpler solution that they implement.
Online tests that can be done from home constitute only a part of the grade. For those to be valid - you have to pass the final exam AT the college.
Many exams require you to write a seminary work and later "defend it" in person in front of the professor.
Here - students are the ones demanding something like that since some of us (like me) have to travel for 6 hours to get to an exam.
Which can be quite ironic when some of your tests take around 20-30 minutes.
Get up at 3 to catch a 5 AM bus, 6 hours one way, do a test, wait for the next bus home, 6 hours back.
Roads here suck. No highway. We might get one in about 10 years or so...
There is also a simple solution to that problem too.
Since most of the tests are done by logging into the college's system with your ID and password - it could be also done over the internet.
Like I said... we do it for the "lesser" tests. Only reason we are not allowed to do that for the final tests is cheating.
Now... my town has a university as well... A good one... only not with such a study program.
Why my college can't or won't contact the faculty of the university here and arrange for us to take the exam from the facilities of the university here (despite students suggesting and demanding that for years now), under the supervision of the local staff - well... I'd rather think its the old incompetence again instead of malice and money.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
School Prison System. I have said it a few times now, on slash dot. School is a prison where young people are held hostage and counted, frequently. These cameras will make that even more efficient.
John Gatto has said it all already http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/prologue2.htm
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
>Everyone and his uncle demands to know my mother's maiden name.
This is culturally insensitive also. It is quite common for one's name and one's mother's maiden name to be the same name.
It's taken for granted as an assumption in the question, that you had married parents, and that your mother changed her name to your father's name, and that your parents gave you your father's name.
Not everybody does that.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I'm in a doctoral program in a technical field at an Ivy League university. My department stopped doing take-home exams for the quals because students were cheating (by the way, the cheaters show a strong and significant trend toward a certain nationality; you may speculate at will). It's still common to cheat on the homework and, well, any other exam where you can possibly get away with it.
I agree that the faculty don't care, but really the only people who are insulted by this are honest people like me. And yeah, I'm pretty fucking disappointed and disillusioned that this is purportedly the creme de la creme of the future. Equally, to be honest, I'm afraid for my future to a certain extent since I refuse to lie - what happens when it becomes a cultural norm and paramount to progress? The further I get ahead in life, the more wretched and petty everyone seems to be. I was in industry before this, and I still marvel at how much more honest it was back then.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
I'm not necessarily talking about courses, but a specific culture and experience. Since I attended North Dakota State University I'll use it's history as an example, I understand it to be fairly typical of state schools.
In the 50's this state run school had a required dress code ( for the stated purpose of promoting unity of community).
All under classmen, were required to live in the dorms. All meals were required to be taken in common at the Dorm and strict curfews were enforced.
There were codes of ethics also enforced and failure to follow them would get you expelled.
Sleeping with someone you weren't married to.
Consorting with 'the wrong' kind of people.
Being convicted of crime all were things that could get you expelled.
In addition to that the close quarters and common uniform as well as the general conventions of society forced a certain homogeneity into the student body because if a person didn't 'fit in' and was 'liked' they would be hazed harassed or otherwise forced to leave while the faculty looked the other way.
Not to say it was a perfect or even a good system.
It was in itself based on the model of older private institutions and the whole system has it's original linage in medieval monistic traditions which resulted in the founding of most of the original universities in Europe.
so culturally and structurally moral formation was always part of the experience. And only a 'certain type' of person was admitted to school or graduate from it.
That , has changed, some say for the better, I tend in many cases to agree , but a knowledge of history should force one to evaluate and understand that with any change of structure their are trade offs and none are perfect.
One consequence of this change is that the word 'educated' no longer is synomous with 'trustworthy and knowledgeable'.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Certainly this is not universally true; Concord Law School, for instance (part of Kaplan University) does not do this; pretty much everything in most classes can be done online through a secure web site. J.D. (bar track) students have to comply with CA Bar requirements for non-ABA schools, which include a proctored First Year Law Students exam and must, of course, pass the bar exam before being admitted to practice law, and those exams, naturally, are quite concerned about verifying ID.
Heck, even for exams in physical institutions, particularly with large class sizes, at most institutions I've experienced there was no serious effort to verify identity (with small class sizes with mandatory attendance, a ringer would be obvious). I suspect that this provision was pushed by the vendors of security devices; I can't see any other interest that would be served by making these devices mandatory.
I wish you'd stop with your "not for Obama"=="racist" bullshit.
There are very good reason to not vote for Obama besides racism, beginning with the idea that the guy is exactly like George W. Bush: :(
1) Both have a proven record of failure
2) Niether held a real job ever in his life
3) Both said the right things while running for office, while their record shows them to be actively lying about what they will actually do (google: obama pressed the wrong button
4) Both have addictive personalities, with recorded histories of drug abuse.
5) Both are dependent on handlers to reach any decision
6) Both are endorsed by special interest groups
7) Both are loved by the media (at least while running for office)
8) Both are self-admitted born-again Christians
9) i could go on but you wound't care anyways
Stop that.
Seriously though, if this passes and will be enforced, bu-bye distance ed. No one in his right mind would stand for this, a better way needs to be found, such as on-campus show-up-in-person-and-test requirements for the final exam.
I recently completed an online course, (got an A,) and have to admit, it was pretty much of a joke. The "instructor" did just about nothing, other than write the book, and make bank off every class full of 50 or more (however many there were) in the class, who were REQUIRED to buy the book. Sharing was not possible the way they have it rigged. All other aspects of the class are basically automated.
It's not the students who are cheating, it is the instructors. Maybe we should put a camera on THEM to make sure they are REALLY grading assignments, and not just glancing at them and giving grades based upon length of response, which is just as hard to prove they're doing as it is to prove they're not, and if they give everyone good grades, no one is going to complain while they're out playing golf, and raking in the bread.
I think what people are missing is that in this day and age, private companies are lobbying for a piece of the action. I doubt some Congress-critter thought this law up themselves. Most likely, someone from some company somewhere approached a Congressperson and told them what a great idea this would be and how they'd be so happy to donate to their reelection campaign.
I remember hearing about some program (Reading First or something) to get kids to read. It mandated using specific textbooks and was a huge gift to one particular company. I think that's what's happening here.