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In case you don't know who Proctorio is: (like me) Apparently it's a supervision software that students are forced to install on their private computer and (a

In case you don't know who Proctorio is: (like me) Apparently it's a supervision software that students are forced to install on their private computer and (as expected) it'll do its worst to invade your privacy and flag "suspicious" things, based on which the university might punish you. "Suspicious" here means wearing glasses [3] or looking around in the room or blinking too much [4] or having eye and/or skin colors [1] that are difficult for AI to track or reading questions out aloud [2]. Because everyone knows that a good student is white, sits in a bright room, and will continuously stare at his/her PC screen while thinking about a difficult math problem, I guess. WTF? I am so glad that this kind of abuse was not yet common when I was in university. I love sitting in the (dark) basement, it helps me concentrate. And I tend to close my eyes a lot because it helps me visualize the problem. I'm sure this kind of misguided software would have failed me. And the worst part is: Bugs in this software will fail students in the real world. [4] So it is crucially important that this type of software receives a lot of scrutiny to make sure it works as planned. But it seems that Proctorio is suing this guy for doing exactly that: Documenting how the software is supposed to work by linking to Proctorio's YouTube videos. [1] https://twitter.com/uhreeb/status/1303139738065481728 https://twitter.com/uhreeb/status/1303139738065481728 [2] https://www.insider.com/viral-tiktok-student-fails-exam-after-ai-software-flags-cheating-2020-10 https://www.insider.com/viral-tiktok-student-fails-exam-afte... [3] https://proctorio.com/frequently-asked-questions https://proctorio.com/frequently-asked-questions [4] https://www.reddit.com/r/UBC/comments/g2ub05/god_kicked_out_half_way_through_my_exam/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UBC/comments/g2ub05/god_kicked_out_...

senectus1 6y ago
wtf. this is some serious 1984 type shit.
Guthur 6y ago
It's actually very disappointing that this whole monitoring system was deemed necessary to begin with. How screwed is the system that anyone one would believe this level of intrusion should be part of the education process.
- buran77 6y ago
  It's just another tool to internalize the discrimination. As long as nobody hits both them and their clients hard, holding them responsible for building the tool as such, for choosing it, or for continuing to use it knowing the issues, there's no incentive for anyone to do better. Think of it another way. If you knowingly contract a member of the KKK to do your hiring, you can't pretend not to know why people of color don't get hired in your company. Proctorio's issue may be more subtle than the "in your face" example I gave above but they're there and whoever contracts them does so with full awareness of them. P.S. Because I'm sure the wave of downvotes is less about people supporting racism and more about ignorance, let me further support my point about such tech with real life examples: https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5gxg3/proctorio-is-using-racist-algorithms-to-detect-faces https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5gxg3/proctorio-is-using-ra... https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/28/22254631/university-of-illinois-urbana-champaign-proctorio-online-test-proctoring-privacy https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/28/22254631/university-of-il... https://twitter.com/uhreeb/status/1303139738065481728 https://twitter.com/uhreeb/status/1303139738065481728 https://twitter.com/cmg/status/1304593597338185730 https://twitter.com/cmg/status/1304593597338185730
- mkl 6y ago
  When you've seen exam-sitting-for-hire in action, you believe it. Most students are honest and genuinely want to learn, and the few that are dishonest cause everyone to be subjected to this. It sucks for everyone, students and staff.
  - necovek 6y ago
    Which does not make tracking everyone a solution to the problem of cheating in exams. Higher level education is largely voluntary, and it's up to the person taking it up to decide what they gain from it. If they are only in it for a diploma, they'd get there one way or another. To me, focusing on finding "cheaters" makes education a competition. I never felt cheaters got anything over me in my studies, and I never felt like I've got a lesser grade because of them. Does that happen in cases where you've seen "exam-sitting-for-hire" in action? Even if you normalize your grading scale based on the students taking the exam right then, if your claim that "most students are honest" is true (and I believe it is), that should not affect any non-cheater significantly (unless you've got a small, non-representative group, but then normalizing grades is unfair to begin with). So my question is: who are we trying to solve the problem for? What is the expected outcome, knowing that there will always be people who "cheat" their way through life too?
Sosh101 6y ago
This is the kind of thing used by companies with terrible management. I hope universities that rely on these extreme tools come to realize how badly it reflects on them.
t0mas88 6y ago
Wow, is that software legal to force upon your students? If you tried this in Europe, even with the student explicitly clicking "I consent", you would still be facing pretty serious GDPR penalties because the student had no other option than to accept making their consent invalid.
- RHSeeger 6y ago
  It would appear that it's already in use in Europe and has win in court. https://gdprhub.eu/index.php?title=Rb._Amsterdam_-_C/13/684665_/_KG_ZA_20-481 https://gdprhub.eu/index.php?title=Rb._Amsterdam_-_C/13/6846... > The Amsterdam Court of First Instance rejected the request by student representatives and an individual student for a preliminary injunction against the use of digital surveillance software for exams by a public university. The court ruled that measures against covid-19 did not allow for a suitable alternative and the processing could therefore be based on Article 6(1)(e) GDPR.
  - Hiopl 6y ago
    I don't understand how that passed. > (e) processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller; What's the point of GDPR if you can side-step it in this way?
  - iforgotpassword 6y ago
    The Netherlands seem to really embrace these platforms. I think for example Chromebook based exams have been big there for quite some years now while it's almost unheard of in Germany.
- antientropic 6y ago
  I wouldn't be too sure about those GDPR penalties. Dutch universities are also using Proctorio, with the recorded footage being sent to the US: https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/opinie-universiteiten-stop-met-bespieden-eigen-studenten~bb1ceaf9/ https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/opinie-universiteit...
christophilus 6y ago
Ah. Prictorio: education spyware just like Socrates used to impose on his pupils. Seriously, the day my university required this would be the last day they received a dime from me. And I’d be getting a refund for the current semester.
DonHopkins 6y ago
Proctorio sounds like Factorio for assholes.
- fileeditview 6y ago
  The whole thing sounds like bad fiction from some dystopia... and to make thinks more comical their name could describe a rectal examination or something. I really hope institutions using this rethink and the company just dies.. some things should not exist.
arminiusreturns 6y ago
My last uni used this and I had another major complaint: I had to show my drivers license to the person in the call center in India every time! None of my questions about what kind of privacy controls existed could be answered... and being a linux only person, it was a major pita to either get them to understand I don't have windows or to not give me a hard time if I was using a VM because who tf trusts that software? (the grwat irony being this school constantly touted its cybersecurity degree programs)
vincentmarle 6y ago
As a remote accredited degree candidate (pre-pandemic so I did it before it was cool) the only alternative to Proctorio was finding an actual proctor in my area who was subject to approval by my university and who I would have to pay to sit and watch over me. Every exam was a multi-week hassle that I had to coordinate with the added stress of last minute cancellations. I much prefer Proctorio. Yeah, it’s intrusive for about 2 hours but then you can close it and go on with your life. Not really a big deal.
- iforgotpassword 6y ago
  Except the fucked up cases op linked and then some. Sure as long as it always works for you it's great and you can just ignore these to avoid uncomfortable thoughts, but once you're affected I bet it turns into a whole different story and suddenly you turn into one of these hysterical tinfoil hats yourself.
aaron695 6y ago
> or having eye and/or skin colors [1] Yet you could only link to one example for a totally different program ExamSoft. They had a thick dark beard above a dark shirt and dark glasses with reflections (on a much lighter skin tone). They also look like they have a second eyebrow due to the lighting on their eye lid and glasses. It could be their head shape tied to their race I guess, but you have a sample of one from a different program which we know nothing about what it's doing. > "or reading questions out aloud [2]" > "I am so glad that this kind of abuse was not yet common when I was in university. I love sitting in the (dark) basement, it helps me concentrate." Compared to going to exam rooms full of people with noise and lighting outside of any control? When were students allowed to read out loud in the 'old' days? We are in a pandemic, millions are dying, I don't get this attitude, what's the alternative? not do exams? I know I cheated, I know most other people at uni cheated with the old system which was hard to cheat at. Hell yes we would all cheat more if the new system allowed us to. The videos in question are still on Youtube under Proctorio Reuploads for what it's worth.
- hackerrrnews 6y ago
  My favourite Hacker News game to play is to count all the hoops people will go through to deny the fact that maybe, just maybe, race can be a factor in people's experiences.
  - aaron695 6y ago
    I'm aiming for a shadow ban so I'll be frank..... https://pimeyes.com/ https://pimeyes.com/ can find the shitty twitter photo of their computer rejection screen from "ExamSoft" across the global fucking web. I put in the photo from twitter and it popped out. And that's the fucking stupid 'photo' of the fucking stupid 'rejection screen' on a program that's not even Proctorio. Sooooo Pimeyes is Polish, maybe it's the programmers from the USA and the fact you have all lost your minds and want to be racist because it makes up for you lack of ability to program. Because the Polish can facial recognise on a USA phone photo of a rejection screen. Yes Dang... here it is, you did this on a different comment but we know this is the one it's about (Still keen for shadow ban, replies are the worst)
HillRat 6y ago
I suspect there’s a strong case that universities are violating ADA and state equal-access laws if they’re using proctoring software that unfairly penalizes individuals with glasses, to say nothing of the issues raised by the potential of racially-biased AI. A few class action suits against state university systems might well be warranted.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Not defending Proctorio, but: As I understand it, the software results aren't directly used to penalize students. It just flags the situation for review by an actual human if the software doesn't have high confidence that the student is looking at the screen most of the time. That doesn't mean there isn't a violation here, of course.
  - _fat_santa 6y ago
    The bigger problem I see is professors that think "Oh well it's sophisticated AI, it can't make a mistake" and take the results for granted. In one of the twitter thread I saw a screenshot form a professors email where they were mentioning that "X student had 100 more eye movements than Y student" and threatened to fail the entire class. That email blew my mind because it seemed like the professor just didn't know or didn't care that the software was the problem here. And that's the real issue.
    - professoretc 6y ago
      If the email mentioned particular students by name then that in and of itself is a violation (at least in California). We're absolutely not supposed to share any student performance information with anyone other than the student, without permission.
      - redwall_hp 6y ago
        That's federal. FERPA.
  - 6y ago
liminalsunset 6y ago
For what it's worth, at the school this happened at, UBC, Proctorio is now effectively banned, along with other similar "algorithmic" proctoring tools, and exams are no longer allowed to use it with some exceptions. They've moved to Lockdown Browser without the recording, and to Zoom proctoring. In my opinion, neither are particularly effective measures against cheating, and I'm sure they are trivially bypassable. The effect of these tools being phased out is that exams now must be harder or less student friendly. Typical practice in some of my courses has been to not allow students to go back to answered questions, while giving large amounts of questions with insufficient time. The exams are scaled, but I can imagine people doing worse in this kind of stress.
- soperj 6y ago
  This is silly. Make the exams open book and then the only thing you really need to worry about is the correct student taking the exam. If you're testing based on memorization of things in this day in age, then the course is useless.
  - earth_walker 6y ago
    This. Our engineering exams were all open book and tested understanding rather than rote memorization. If you didn't understand the material well there was no amount of googling that could help you.
  - samkater 6y ago
    I would add some nuance to this view. For nearly every undergraduate course I agree - the ability of knowing where to look for resources in a particular subject matter, synthesizing the available information to solve a reasonably novel problem, and presenting the information in a coherent way is a skill/art that should be one of the primary goals of the education. For advanced degrees, though, I'm not so sure. I expect someone which a masters or Ph.D. to actually be an expert in the subject matter, not just someone who is really good at figuring out how to solve problems. A big part of that is being able to internalize the information so well they you in effect become a resource that could be used by an undergraduate student. This internalization goes beyond rote memorization, but memorization is a big part of it too. Just a disclaimer, though - I do not have an advanced degree, so maybe I expect too much from those who do? A big reason why I have no interest in pursuing one is that many people with a masters degree I find have little expertise to show for it, they could have just as easily learned the same information by self-study or being fortunate enough to find interesting work. (the hiring landscape is a separate topic)
Buttons840 6y ago
Maybe we need an honest to God religion forbidding the use of non-free software, and then we too can play the religion card. Class orders you to install Proctorio? "Sorry, that's against my religion." Fail the class? It's because they required me to sin against my religious beliefs and I would not. Of course, like all religions, not all members will follow the beliefs all the time. At least that's what I tell myself while sinning with a non-free video game I installed. Many a pastor has molested children, but the courts still recognize those religions. So when the founder of this religion is caught duel-booting Windows, we'll just remember that the religion is divine, even if the people aren't.
- bombcar 6y ago
  It already exists: https://stallman.org/saint.html https://stallman.org/saint.html and if people can get Jedi recognized you should be able to get that recognized (but the courts basically look at do you really act like you believe).
MetaWhirledPeas 6y ago
> So it is crucially important that this type of software receives a lot of scrutiny to make sure it works as planned. What's crucially important is that this type of software is BANNED. I now have a new question to ask schools when my kid applies to one.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  It's not a trivial problem to solve. The amount of cheating that goes on at the university level is pretty astounding.
908B64B197 6y ago
That's one of the reasons I wish more people would run Windows 10S or whatever the store only version was called. Or iOS. Can't install shady third party drivers, can't install stuff like that that mess with hypervisors (and anyways, every app kind of runs in a sandboxed process anyways) and your app can go in the background at anytime! Don't like it? Roll your own devices.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  I really hope this was meant as a sarcasm. There are already banking apps and some mobile games (hello Pokémon GO!) pushing for trusted computing where the user is not in control and only a manufacturer OS image is installed. Not to mention game consoles that are like this by default. We hardly need more entities pushing for this dystopia...
Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
>looking around in the room or blinking too much >And I tend to close my eyes a lot because it helps me visualize the problem Nvidia has added eye-correction feature to it's Maxine platform(SDK with set of ML features for video conferencing) it can correct our eyes in real-time to show that we're looking at the camera even when we didn't. When I first saw it's demo the first thing which came to my mind was these proctoring tools[1]. It's a matter of time before all major video conferencing tools add these features or 3rd party plugins/hacks which enable it. I'm not against these proctoring tools, Especially since there are not many options during lockdowns but considering what's at stake they deserve all the scrutiny they can get and if a company threatens with lawsuits for genuine criticisms it tells a lot about their business practice; Sadly this seems to be very common in the e-education sector(Checkout unicorns claiming to have placed 10 year old in Google after taking their 'coding' class and the retribution faced by activists for showcasing the lies). [1]https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1381831802315177989 https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1381831802315177989
- reaperducer 6y ago
  It's a matter of time before all major video conferencing tools add these features or 3rd party plugins/hacks which enable it. Apple demonstrated this in Facetime about a year ago, but I don't know what happened to it. I don't use Facetime, so I can't confirm it was ever implemented. But clearly it's on big tech's radar.
  - Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
    I see, thanks for sharing. I don't do any video calls either (or any real-time comm) I suspected that this feature might be already in some video conferencing software considering there seems to be a need gap for eye-correction features.
lolinder 6y ago
I had to use Proctorio for a stats class that I took, and two or three times per test it asked me to lift my laptop up and rotate it so that it could see the entire room. The worst part was that when I was done the button to return to the test never showed up. Each time this happened, I had to contact customer support to get them to unlock my screen. The distraction this posed had a measurable impact on my scores on these tests.
- LanceH 6y ago
  You should demands points on the exam for successfully completing the instructions of the exam. Anything which can count against a grade must surely count toward a grade.
throw14082020 6y ago
> In case you don't know who Proctorio is: Procto-: Anus; (more frequently) rectum; -torio: radioactive chemical element (in spanish) Therefore, it is a radioactive anus?
bregma 6y ago
Here I was assuming it was a proctological mod for Factorio that modifies how inserters work. Reality is infinitely worse.
heavyset_go 6y ago
If you think this is bad, I've been sent online coding tests that do the same thing after applying for positions. They require you to keep your camera on and record you as you complete the tests. Thankfully, it's a good filter for deciding which employers I don't want to work for. I can only imagine what it's like working for a company that trusts their employees that little.
kelnos 6y ago
From your Insider link: > LSU student body president Stone Cox said that the fees, which could come out to $300, were prohibitive for students. What the hell? Not only are universities mandating students infect their systems with malware, but they're making the students pay for the privilege? That's ridiculous.

senectus1 6y ago

wtf. this is some serious 1984 type shit.

Guthur 6y ago

It's actually very disappointing that this whole monitoring system was deemed necessary to begin with. How screwed is the system that anyone one would believe this level of intrusion should be part of the education process.

buran77 6y ago
It's just another tool to internalize the discrimination. As long as nobody hits both them and their clients hard, holding them responsible for building the tool as such, for choosing it, or for continuing to use it knowing the issues, there's no incentive for anyone to do better. Think of it another way. If you knowingly contract a member of the KKK to do your hiring, you can't pretend not to know why people of color don't get hired in your company. Proctorio's issue may be more subtle than the "in your face" example I gave above but they're there and whoever contracts them does so with full awareness of them. P.S. Because I'm sure the wave of downvotes is less about people supporting racism and more about ignorance, let me further support my point about such tech with real life examples: https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5gxg3/proctorio-is-using-racist-algorithms-to-detect-faces https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5gxg3/proctorio-is-using-ra... https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/28/22254631/university-of-illinois-urbana-champaign-proctorio-online-test-proctoring-privacy https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/28/22254631/university-of-il... https://twitter.com/uhreeb/status/1303139738065481728 https://twitter.com/uhreeb/status/1303139738065481728 https://twitter.com/cmg/status/1304593597338185730 https://twitter.com/cmg/status/1304593597338185730
mkl 6y ago
When you've seen exam-sitting-for-hire in action, you believe it. Most students are honest and genuinely want to learn, and the few that are dishonest cause everyone to be subjected to this. It sucks for everyone, students and staff.
- necovek 6y ago
  Which does not make tracking everyone a solution to the problem of cheating in exams. Higher level education is largely voluntary, and it's up to the person taking it up to decide what they gain from it. If they are only in it for a diploma, they'd get there one way or another. To me, focusing on finding "cheaters" makes education a competition. I never felt cheaters got anything over me in my studies, and I never felt like I've got a lesser grade because of them. Does that happen in cases where you've seen "exam-sitting-for-hire" in action? Even if you normalize your grading scale based on the students taking the exam right then, if your claim that "most students are honest" is true (and I believe it is), that should not affect any non-cheater significantly (unless you've got a small, non-representative group, but then normalizing grades is unfair to begin with). So my question is: who are we trying to solve the problem for? What is the expected outcome, knowing that there will always be people who "cheat" their way through life too?

Sosh101 6y ago

This is the kind of thing used by companies with terrible management. I hope universities that rely on these extreme tools come to realize how badly it reflects on them.

t0mas88 6y ago

Wow, is that software legal to force upon your students? If you tried this in Europe, even with the student explicitly clicking "I consent", you would still be facing pretty serious GDPR penalties because the student had no other option than to accept making their consent invalid.

RHSeeger 6y ago
It would appear that it's already in use in Europe and has win in court. https://gdprhub.eu/index.php?title=Rb._Amsterdam_-_C/13/684665_/_KG_ZA_20-481 https://gdprhub.eu/index.php?title=Rb._Amsterdam_-_C/13/6846... > The Amsterdam Court of First Instance rejected the request by student representatives and an individual student for a preliminary injunction against the use of digital surveillance software for exams by a public university. The court ruled that measures against covid-19 did not allow for a suitable alternative and the processing could therefore be based on Article 6(1)(e) GDPR.
- Hiopl 6y ago
  I don't understand how that passed. > (e) processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller; What's the point of GDPR if you can side-step it in this way?
- iforgotpassword 6y ago
  The Netherlands seem to really embrace these platforms. I think for example Chromebook based exams have been big there for quite some years now while it's almost unheard of in Germany.
antientropic 6y ago
I wouldn't be too sure about those GDPR penalties. Dutch universities are also using Proctorio, with the recorded footage being sent to the US: https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/opinie-universiteiten-stop-met-bespieden-eigen-studenten~bb1ceaf9/ https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/opinie-universiteit...

christophilus 6y ago

Ah. Prictorio: education spyware just like Socrates used to impose on his pupils. Seriously, the day my university required this would be the last day they received a dime from me. And I’d be getting a refund for the current semester.

DonHopkins 6y ago

Proctorio sounds like Factorio for assholes.

fileeditview 6y ago
The whole thing sounds like bad fiction from some dystopia... and to make thinks more comical their name could describe a rectal examination or something. I really hope institutions using this rethink and the company just dies.. some things should not exist.

arminiusreturns 6y ago

My last uni used this and I had another major complaint: I had to show my drivers license to the person in the call center in India every time! None of my questions about what kind of privacy controls existed could be answered... and being a linux only person, it was a major pita to either get them to understand I don't have windows or to not give me a hard time if I was using a VM because who tf trusts that software? (the grwat irony being this school constantly touted its cybersecurity degree programs)

vincentmarle 6y ago

As a remote accredited degree candidate (pre-pandemic so I did it before it was cool) the only alternative to Proctorio was finding an actual proctor in my area who was subject to approval by my university and who I would have to pay to sit and watch over me. Every exam was a multi-week hassle that I had to coordinate with the added stress of last minute cancellations. I much prefer Proctorio. Yeah, it’s intrusive for about 2 hours but then you can close it and go on with your life. Not really a big deal.

iforgotpassword 6y ago
Except the fucked up cases op linked and then some. Sure as long as it always works for you it's great and you can just ignore these to avoid uncomfortable thoughts, but once you're affected I bet it turns into a whole different story and suddenly you turn into one of these hysterical tinfoil hats yourself.

aaron695 6y ago

> or having eye and/or skin colors [1] Yet you could only link to one example for a totally different program ExamSoft. They had a thick dark beard above a dark shirt and dark glasses with reflections (on a much lighter skin tone). They also look like they have a second eyebrow due to the lighting on their eye lid and glasses. It could be their head shape tied to their race I guess, but you have a sample of one from a different program which we know nothing about what it's doing. > "or reading questions out aloud [2]" > "I am so glad that this kind of abuse was not yet common when I was in university. I love sitting in the (dark) basement, it helps me concentrate." Compared to going to exam rooms full of people with noise and lighting outside of any control? When were students allowed to read out loud in the 'old' days? We are in a pandemic, millions are dying, I don't get this attitude, what's the alternative? not do exams? I know I cheated, I know most other people at uni cheated with the old system which was hard to cheat at. Hell yes we would all cheat more if the new system allowed us to. The videos in question are still on Youtube under Proctorio Reuploads for what it's worth.

hackerrrnews 6y ago
My favourite Hacker News game to play is to count all the hoops people will go through to deny the fact that maybe, just maybe, race can be a factor in people's experiences.
- aaron695 6y ago
  I'm aiming for a shadow ban so I'll be frank..... https://pimeyes.com/ https://pimeyes.com/ can find the shitty twitter photo of their computer rejection screen from "ExamSoft" across the global fucking web. I put in the photo from twitter and it popped out. And that's the fucking stupid 'photo' of the fucking stupid 'rejection screen' on a program that's not even Proctorio. Sooooo Pimeyes is Polish, maybe it's the programmers from the USA and the fact you have all lost your minds and want to be racist because it makes up for you lack of ability to program. Because the Polish can facial recognise on a USA phone photo of a rejection screen. Yes Dang... here it is, you did this on a different comment but we know this is the one it's about (Still keen for shadow ban, replies are the worst)

HillRat 6y ago

I suspect there’s a strong case that universities are violating ADA and state equal-access laws if they’re using proctoring software that unfairly penalizes individuals with glasses, to say nothing of the issues raised by the potential of racially-biased AI. A few class action suits against state university systems might well be warranted.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Not defending Proctorio, but: As I understand it, the software results aren't directly used to penalize students. It just flags the situation for review by an actual human if the software doesn't have high confidence that the student is looking at the screen most of the time. That doesn't mean there isn't a violation here, of course.
- _fat_santa 6y ago
  The bigger problem I see is professors that think "Oh well it's sophisticated AI, it can't make a mistake" and take the results for granted. In one of the twitter thread I saw a screenshot form a professors email where they were mentioning that "X student had 100 more eye movements than Y student" and threatened to fail the entire class. That email blew my mind because it seemed like the professor just didn't know or didn't care that the software was the problem here. And that's the real issue.
  - professoretc 6y ago
    If the email mentioned particular students by name then that in and of itself is a violation (at least in California). We're absolutely not supposed to share any student performance information with anyone other than the student, without permission.
    - redwall_hp 6y ago
      That's federal. FERPA.
- 6y ago

liminalsunset 6y ago

For what it's worth, at the school this happened at, UBC, Proctorio is now effectively banned, along with other similar "algorithmic" proctoring tools, and exams are no longer allowed to use it with some exceptions. They've moved to Lockdown Browser without the recording, and to Zoom proctoring. In my opinion, neither are particularly effective measures against cheating, and I'm sure they are trivially bypassable. The effect of these tools being phased out is that exams now must be harder or less student friendly. Typical practice in some of my courses has been to not allow students to go back to answered questions, while giving large amounts of questions with insufficient time. The exams are scaled, but I can imagine people doing worse in this kind of stress.

soperj 6y ago
This is silly. Make the exams open book and then the only thing you really need to worry about is the correct student taking the exam. If you're testing based on memorization of things in this day in age, then the course is useless.
- earth_walker 6y ago
  This. Our engineering exams were all open book and tested understanding rather than rote memorization. If you didn't understand the material well there was no amount of googling that could help you.
- samkater 6y ago
  I would add some nuance to this view. For nearly every undergraduate course I agree - the ability of knowing where to look for resources in a particular subject matter, synthesizing the available information to solve a reasonably novel problem, and presenting the information in a coherent way is a skill/art that should be one of the primary goals of the education. For advanced degrees, though, I'm not so sure. I expect someone which a masters or Ph.D. to actually be an expert in the subject matter, not just someone who is really good at figuring out how to solve problems. A big part of that is being able to internalize the information so well they you in effect become a resource that could be used by an undergraduate student. This internalization goes beyond rote memorization, but memorization is a big part of it too. Just a disclaimer, though - I do not have an advanced degree, so maybe I expect too much from those who do? A big reason why I have no interest in pursuing one is that many people with a masters degree I find have little expertise to show for it, they could have just as easily learned the same information by self-study or being fortunate enough to find interesting work. (the hiring landscape is a separate topic)

Buttons840 6y ago

Maybe we need an honest to God religion forbidding the use of non-free software, and then we too can play the religion card. Class orders you to install Proctorio? "Sorry, that's against my religion." Fail the class? It's because they required me to sin against my religious beliefs and I would not. Of course, like all religions, not all members will follow the beliefs all the time. At least that's what I tell myself while sinning with a non-free video game I installed. Many a pastor has molested children, but the courts still recognize those religions. So when the founder of this religion is caught duel-booting Windows, we'll just remember that the religion is divine, even if the people aren't.

bombcar 6y ago
It already exists: https://stallman.org/saint.html https://stallman.org/saint.html and if people can get Jedi recognized you should be able to get that recognized (but the courts basically look at do you really act like you believe).

MetaWhirledPeas 6y ago

> So it is crucially important that this type of software receives a lot of scrutiny to make sure it works as planned. What's crucially important is that this type of software is BANNED. I now have a new question to ask schools when my kid applies to one.

rootusrootus 6y ago
It's not a trivial problem to solve. The amount of cheating that goes on at the university level is pretty astounding.

908B64B197 6y ago

That's one of the reasons I wish more people would run Windows 10S or whatever the store only version was called. Or iOS. Can't install shady third party drivers, can't install stuff like that that mess with hypervisors (and anyways, every app kind of runs in a sandboxed process anyways) and your app can go in the background at anytime! Don't like it? Roll your own devices.

m4rtink 6y ago
I really hope this was meant as a sarcasm. There are already banking apps and some mobile games (hello Pokémon GO!) pushing for trusted computing where the user is not in control and only a manufacturer OS image is installed. Not to mention game consoles that are like this by default. We hardly need more entities pushing for this dystopia...

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago

>looking around in the room or blinking too much >And I tend to close my eyes a lot because it helps me visualize the problem Nvidia has added eye-correction feature to it's Maxine platform(SDK with set of ML features for video conferencing) it can correct our eyes in real-time to show that we're looking at the camera even when we didn't. When I first saw it's demo the first thing which came to my mind was these proctoring tools[1]. It's a matter of time before all major video conferencing tools add these features or 3rd party plugins/hacks which enable it. I'm not against these proctoring tools, Especially since there are not many options during lockdowns but considering what's at stake they deserve all the scrutiny they can get and if a company threatens with lawsuits for genuine criticisms it tells a lot about their business practice; Sadly this seems to be very common in the e-education sector(Checkout unicorns claiming to have placed 10 year old in Google after taking their 'coding' class and the retribution faced by activists for showcasing the lies). [1]https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1381831802315177989 https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1381831802315177989

reaperducer 6y ago
It's a matter of time before all major video conferencing tools add these features or 3rd party plugins/hacks which enable it. Apple demonstrated this in Facetime about a year ago, but I don't know what happened to it. I don't use Facetime, so I can't confirm it was ever implemented. But clearly it's on big tech's radar.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
  I see, thanks for sharing. I don't do any video calls either (or any real-time comm) I suspected that this feature might be already in some video conferencing software considering there seems to be a need gap for eye-correction features.

lolinder 6y ago

I had to use Proctorio for a stats class that I took, and two or three times per test it asked me to lift my laptop up and rotate it so that it could see the entire room. The worst part was that when I was done the button to return to the test never showed up. Each time this happened, I had to contact customer support to get them to unlock my screen. The distraction this posed had a measurable impact on my scores on these tests.

LanceH 6y ago
You should demands points on the exam for successfully completing the instructions of the exam. Anything which can count against a grade must surely count toward a grade.

throw14082020 6y ago

> In case you don't know who Proctorio is: Procto-: Anus; (more frequently) rectum; -torio: radioactive chemical element (in spanish) Therefore, it is a radioactive anus?

bregma 6y ago

Here I was assuming it was a proctological mod for Factorio that modifies how inserters work. Reality is infinitely worse.

heavyset_go 6y ago

If you think this is bad, I've been sent online coding tests that do the same thing after applying for positions. They require you to keep your camera on and record you as you complete the tests. Thankfully, it's a good filter for deciding which employers I don't want to work for. I can only imagine what it's like working for a company that trusts their employees that little.

kelnos 6y ago

From your Insider link: > LSU student body president Stone Cox said that the fees, which could come out to $300, were prohibitive for students. What the hell? Not only are universities mandating students infect their systems with malware, but they're making the students pay for the privilege? That's ridiculous.