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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 ind

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.
- ls612 6y ago
  Yes, that is exactly how it works (I TA for a class which uses it). Proctorio flags things it thinks are suspicious, and when we look at the video we usually find it was something innocuous (pets are a common culprit). We do find a few people actually cheating though so it definitely has its merits.

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.
ls612 6y ago
Yes, that is exactly how it works (I TA for a class which uses it). Proctorio flags things it thinks are suspicious, and when we look at the video we usually find it was something innocuous (pets are a common culprit). We do find a few people actually cheating though so it definitely has its merits.