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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."
Will they watch that too?
I thought school was for learning things rather than getting a fancy piece of paper.
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?
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...
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.
I'll go to a brick and mortar school next time. No way am I putting one of those things in my house.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
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.
Spy camera? Not quite. They're basically just posing a "Hold up a picture of yourself with today's local newspaper so we know you are where you say you are." type challenge to prove that when you sit down for a high-stakes college exam, you are who you say you are.
It's not like they're requiring your iSight camera be on 24/7. So this sensational headline doesn't match the story. Nothing to see here. Move along.
That's all, it doesn't require cameras, just that they can prove who is doing the work. It could be as simple as still requiring the student to go to a proctor to take an exam. There's nothing like trying to make something seem worse than it is. This poster is just like the media. Here's the answer. If you are going to take a class where they require you have a camera on you in the house and you don't like that, take the class somewhere else.
A man with a gun is called a citizen. A man without a gun is called a subject.
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.
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.
TFA is saying that distance-colleges have to have some way to verify that the person on the computer is the person who signed up for the course. This could be a camera, or a fingerprint scanner, a typing analysis program, a photo, or a combo of the above. It's not spying 24/7 or anything like that, just using the devices during some assignments.
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 $150 for the device.
Losing the fingerprint scanner would drop the price a bit, and audio for each panelist could still be recorded using a multi-track recorder. But you may need HD resolution for capture in order to get SD-quality shots for editing, which you don't need for simple monitoring.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I am looking for a extra long USB cable extender. It should plug in to the computer in the next room and allow the thingie given by the university to by in my room, allowing me to pretend I am working on a computer, while my friend, (friend? What friend charges 200$ for one lousy test, he is no friend) Venkatasubramaniapalvayantheeswara Rao takes the examn on the other computer.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
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.
"World Campus, the online arm of the Pennsylvania State University system, is testing another system called Webassessor. It uses proctors, Web cameras, and software that recognizes students' typing styles, such as their speed and whether they pause between certain letters. Students purchase the cameras for $50 to $80 apiece. They allow proctors to view a student's face, keyboard, and workspace.
The Phoenix-based provider of the system, Kryterion Inc., employs proctors who remotely observe and listen to as many as 50 students at a time. If the keystroke pattern of a student who is taking an exam does not match the one he or she provided at registration, or if the image of a student taking an exam does not match a digital photograph that the student provided at enrollment, then the student cannot start the exam. A proctor can also stop a student who is acting suspiciously from completing an exam. Students must have a broadband connection to use the service."
I almost NEVER type at the same speed unless I am on a ROLL, and I rarely hit my max of 60+ wpm anymore, especially since I was last connected to FRED, that east-coast-based computer that tracked our Radioman Teletype testing performance in RM "A" School at the (now former) NTC/SSC, San Diego, back in early 1986.
So, how are these proctor exam software expecting to dupe schools, donors, and tax payers into believing that a supposedly critical component -- typing speed/pattern matching -- is realistic. All it takes is pondering, realizing - worrying, being distracted in many and any kinds of ways - to variously and non-deterministically disrupt the pattern-matching algorithm.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Start attending online class in your birthday suit, and they'll quickly do away with this restriction.
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?
So how will all that bandwidth hurt my p2p downloads?
Extra points if your ethics exam is what's killing your download rate.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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
item 1 on bill: save distressed orphan puppies from torture.
item 2 on bill : give 10 trillion dollars to the military and surrender your right to vote.
Why would you vote against a omnibus bill that wants to stop puppy torture?! Are you some kind of sicko!!
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.
Actually, there are several laws, (or i guess rules would be a better word). Many federal exams, like one you fill out during the process of getting hired at Homeland Security require a "proctored test" with so many requirements on the room, quietness, the people watching and the stuff on the computers, that its almost silly. When they last asked our community college to be a proctor site for TSA exams, we looked at the requirements that stated that we had to use MS Java, which is no longer available or supported, with IE 5, we could download both from their secure FTP site, and no other browsers or plugins or versions of java could be installed (or any other software).. We declined..
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
1. Be under 18 years old
2. Perform a sex act on the camera.
3. Compel discovery against the university for possession of child pornography.
4. ???
5. Profit!!!
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
You're telling me you would rather travel to a brick and mortar school, sit in an uncomfortable institutional chair, comply with thier schedule, stifle your yawns while listening to Professor Curmudgeon and not look at online porn while doing calculus etc... all instead of being involved in the filming of College Girls Taking Tests III: Dirty Dirty Math? Well someone clearly has thier priorities wrong.
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
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.
Actually, my public library ends up proctoring two to three distance education students per week. For free, of course. A reference librarian goes through the rigamarole with the student and sticks him/her at a table and the reference staff keeps an eye on him/her as we all wander around. If it's a computer-based test, we reserve a computer in the Computer Center for the student and the Computer Center staff watches him/her. Either way, you end up with multiple proctors at the same time (harder to cheat), though we have the same official person sign off on the test every time.
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.
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."