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We will have to agree to disagree then. The whole term invigilation is a bit dystopian. It is a huge slippery slope because this privacy invasive software ends

by sireat 6y ago

We will have to agree to disagree then. The whole term invigilation is a bit dystopian. It is a huge slippery slope because this privacy invasive software ends up being used for such mundane things like weekly quizzes. Do you really want to live in the future/present where we have to submit ourselves to daily monitoring? How about adding some monitoring via sensors of performance boosting substances? My answer is that such monitoring software should be only used under exceptional circumstances on neutral computers - my example was a testing center with insufficient human supervision.

mkl 6y ago
I think you're extrapolating way too far, and hence your arguments aren't hitting the mark. The total amount of invigilation in the entirety of each course I'm involved in is 3-5 hours. This has been the case for many decades. This year, for some students, it is aided by software, due to the fact that they're unavoidably thousands of kilometres away. It is not a slippery slope, and none of your dystopian ideas seem like they could result from it. This kind of software does not monitor computer use outside of the test. It monitors the student during the test, like a human invigilator (yes, it's recorded, so not identical). During the test, the student is only working on the test, which is not private or secret. When the test is finished, the software exits. I don't see how you could have the resources for an infrequently used testing centre, but not enough to pay one person for an hour or two. That is not what this kind of software is useful for.
- oxylibrium 6y ago
  > During the test, the student is only working on the test, which is not private or secret. You fail to consider the circumstances in which the test takes place. Students take the test in their personal spaces, and earlier in the thread, you mentioned essentially inspecting a student's living space (...angle of camera, light, checking environment, etc...) "Checking environment" is really just a cold, "process" word for inspecting a student's living space. A student's room can often have private or secret things about them. Before you ask, not every student has the privilege to use a separate, clean, blank room to take tests. A personal space is inevitably going to have personal, private things. I've brought this up before; I personally know friends who were outed to professors as trans because their personal space has things like needles - and then you even have stuff like naive professors assuming "drugs" when its really just medications. It could be anything else besides that, in fact - calendars with things scribbled on them; family photos; posters for political organizations; if you look in someone's bedroom, you're inevitably going to find out things about them that they would rather you not know. Would you take your students on a tour of your bedroom while you're teaching an online class? EDIT: In addition, there's non-traditional students and high risk students, and interruptions in general - there's not _only_ a test going on - I've had someone from my family interrupted in the middle of an exam because someone from the government knocked the door to take our temperatures and ensure we're healthy and don't have COVID. There's always more things going on, too.

by sireat 6y ago

mkl 6y ago

I think you're extrapolating way too far, and hence your arguments aren't hitting the mark. The total amount of invigilation in the entirety of each course I'm involved in is 3-5 hours. This has been the case for many decades. This year, for some students, it is aided by software, due to the fact that they're unavoidably thousands of kilometres away. It is not a slippery slope, and none of your dystopian ideas seem like they could result from it. This kind of software does not monitor computer use outside of the test. It monitors the student during the test, like a human invigilator (yes, it's recorded, so not identical). During the test, the student is only working on the test, which is not private or secret. When the test is finished, the software exits. I don't see how you could have the resources for an infrequently used testing centre, but not enough to pay one person for an hour or two. That is not what this kind of software is useful for.

oxylibrium 6y ago
> During the test, the student is only working on the test, which is not private or secret. You fail to consider the circumstances in which the test takes place. Students take the test in their personal spaces, and earlier in the thread, you mentioned essentially inspecting a student's living space (...angle of camera, light, checking environment, etc...) "Checking environment" is really just a cold, "process" word for inspecting a student's living space. A student's room can often have private or secret things about them. Before you ask, not every student has the privilege to use a separate, clean, blank room to take tests. A personal space is inevitably going to have personal, private things. I've brought this up before; I personally know friends who were outed to professors as trans because their personal space has things like needles - and then you even have stuff like naive professors assuming "drugs" when its really just medications. It could be anything else besides that, in fact - calendars with things scribbled on them; family photos; posters for political organizations; if you look in someone's bedroom, you're inevitably going to find out things about them that they would rather you not know. Would you take your students on a tour of your bedroom while you're teaching an online class? EDIT: In addition, there's non-traditional students and high risk students, and interruptions in general - there's not _only_ a test going on - I've had someone from my family interrupted in the middle of an exam because someone from the government knocked the door to take our temperatures and ensure we're healthy and don't have COVID. There's always more things going on, too.