**Discalimer: I must apologize to my fellow classmates for the tardiness of my post this week. I have been sick and sleeping for the better part of the past three days.** Our task this week was to explore a particular aspect of online learning that interests us. After our discussion last Tuesday evening touching briefly on assessment, and with the next round of report cards coming up at my school, I have been obsessing about evaluating student learning, and how to ensure academic integrity when students are learning and completing tasks at home. In my other grad class, we briefly discussed the online proctoring software ProctorTrack, which is being used in several courses at the University of Regina this academic year (The Carillon). Then on Saturday morning, I attended a webinar through Let’s Talk Science, which focused on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data collection/use. I spent Saturday afternoon reading and searching for more information about the use of AI to monitor behaviour during remote testing, and the dangers of participating blindly in Big Data collection… a rabbit hole of sorts. Saturday evening, I was overcome with fatigue. Assuming I had just filled my brain with too much information, I put my notes aside and went to bed. Unfortunately, I barely got back out of bed until Tuesday morning, doing so only to make sub plans Sunday night and go for a Covid test Monday afternoon. Results still pending at publication of this post.**Update: result = negative!!** The main questions I sought to answer this week were:
Online proctoring software has seen an increase in popularity, obviously due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, these types of services are not exactly new. Dimeo, 2017, wrote about higher learning institutions adopting these programs, and the potential concerns about privacy and AI capabilities. Now that most university students are learning remotely, “e-proctoring was deemed necessary to keep the integrity of our programs and degrees”, stated Associate Dean of Arts at the University of Regina, Joseph Piwowar (Tamelin, 2020). Research shows that these programs do appear to deter cheating, similar to a live proctored setting (Dimeo, 2017, Langenfeld, 2020). The Artificial Intelligence technology used by this software uses the student's camera to monitor their behaviour during the test such as looking away from the screen, leaving the computer, taking a longer than normal period of time to answer a question, having another person in the room, and so on. The camera is also used to assure the identity of the student taking the test using a variety of metrics. But what about students with special needs or situations, such as parents of young children or pet owners? If a student is interrupted, it could register by the proctoring software as potential cheating behaviour. And what about privacy issues? Shae Sackman, a student at the University of Regina, was particularly concerned with what could be done with this information. “If you have test data for 100,000 students and you decide to say, racially profile those students and break them into what patterns are visible in different ethnicities you could very easily develop tests and exercises that would perhaps favour a certain kind of profile of person. Say Proctortrack partners with Pearson, who is a large, unethical educational institution testing company that issues standardized tests and assessments.… We’re literally paying to build a database of info on us to be used for unknown purposes later.” (Tamelin, 2020) Being aware of what personal data is being collected, by whom, and for what purpose are central ideas to the adoption of any sort of technology for educational purposes, including assessment. For post-secondary students and institutions, this should be clearly explained to and understood by adult learners. To me, things get much more complicated in the K-12 system, where any data gathered would be the personal information of minors.
Advice about structuring online courses and assessment can perhaps address some of the concerns about academic integrity without the need to adopt an online proctoring service. Several main ideas were common throughout my reading this week, from an article in a peer-reviewed journal to online education blogs, ranging from K-12 to Post-secondary settings (Bendici, 2020, Klein, 2020, Theodosiou & Corbin, 2020):
4 Comments
Heidi, I'm sorry to hear that you fell ill. I was thinking about you, as last time we talked you were self-isolating. I hope you feel better soon! Also, did you sign-up for e-health? I know when my classroom was closed, the results were up the next day. Very helpful as I know that they are very behind on their phone calls.
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Miranda
3/9/2021 02:32:35 pm
First off, I hope you are starting to feel better and that your test results come back as you hope. Second I feel like you have been bombarded with all things assessment that this was the perfect topic for you to reflect on. Third is in regards to proctoring. When it first hit the news I had no idea what they were taking about, then I did some research and filled in some blanks. One of the things I guess I am naive about is that respectable institutions would allow for parties to collect data on their students. To me it just seems so immoral that I can't even imagine it happening. Which is why it is why I agree with you that it is important for students to "Being aware of what personal data is being collected, by whom, and for what purpose are central ideas to the adoption of any sort of technology for educational purposes, including assessment.". Thanks for sharing on a topic that I find absolutely interesting. Get well soon.
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Jamie Mayoh-Bauche
3/9/2021 03:27:21 pm
Thanks so much for your thoughts on online assessment and proctoring software. I hope that you are Covid negative and that you feel better soon.
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Catherine Ready
3/15/2021 11:28:50 am
Great post, Heidi! And thank goodness you do not have COVID - it is always stressful waiting for those kinds of results. I really enjoyed reading this post because online proctering is something I have read about but have not given much thought because it doesn't really apply to me! I remember my husband took a course through Athabasca University, and the option was to go to a testing centre in Regina or use and online proctering service. He chose the online service because of the convenience of being at home. But when he was setting up, they were very specific that our kitchen table had to be completely clear of any extra mess or papers before the exam could begin. I never even consider the data that could be collected and the implications of using AI software. We were definitely naive about the whole thing! I think the idea of online proctering has brought up different issues in that we need to reconsider how we are assessing students in an online environment. Thank you for opening my eyes to this topic and encouraging me to go down my own rabbit hole of AI research!
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A note from Heidi:I adore teaching and learning, irl. I'm up for the challenge of designing effective virtual learning spaces for my students! Please follow my uphill journey with educational technology here. Archives |