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Proctor-spyware is also famously biased: https://library.auraria.edu/news/2021/why-online-test-proctoring-biased-expert https://library.auraria.edu/news/2021/wh

Proctor-spyware is also famously biased: https://library.auraria.edu/news/2021/why-online-test-proctoring-biased-expert https://library.auraria.edu/news/2021/why-online-test-procto... I opted out of using spyware in the university physics courses I taught last year, and caught my cheating students the old fashioned way. Proctor-spyware, like airport security, is more about theater than effectiveness. You aren't giving the USMLE or a Bar Exam, so you can take the time to write a good exam and evaluate it correctly.

mechanical_bear 5y ago
> …reinforces white supremacy, sexism, ableism, and transphobia. Article proceeds to use a lot of words to not show any of these being true. I am against it for the general dystopian surveillance normalization it encourages. We don’t need to throw a word salad of made up progressive insults against it to resist its implementation.
javajosh 5y ago
I've never graded tests or papers, but I always assumed cheating would be obvious because if you go to chat with a student about the problem, they will not have anything to say.
- ht_th 5y ago
  True, but that is not the same as proving someone cheated. Besides, when you have too many students, you cannot talk to all of them one-by-one in any meaningful way. Or assess them in a meaningful way, to be honest. By the way, where I work, management pushes for stuff like proctoring, and more students, and "measurable" results, and so on. As a teacher, I don't care much about the whole grading show.
  - kwhitefoot 5y ago
    > you have too many students, Then the students are not getting what they pay for.
- Vrondi 5y ago
  Well, if you put up an online exam that consists of only basic multiple choice tests, then you're making it a lot easier to cheat. That's the source of a lot of the trouble.
  - professoretc 5y ago
    That's true, but questions that are difficult to cheat on are both difficult (time-consuming) to create, and difficult (time-consuming) to grade. Which means less time for other stuff, like actually teaching.
    - pfortuny 5y ago
      Not so much. They take time but to me it is a reasonable amount of time.
    - lostcolony 5y ago
      So I only have experience creating/grading tests as a TA, not a prof, but that wasn't my experience at all. The total time spent in creating a few good, easy to discuss questions, the answering of which would demonstrate understanding, and then reading them, thinking about them, and coming up with a grade, was probably actually less than the amount of time it took to create meaningful multiple choice questions that didn't have any ambiguity, and which weren't easy to intuit the answer even without understanding. Doubly so when we did away with "partial credit" answers, but instead made it so each question was 1 point (or otherwise all or nothing), you had, say, 5 of them, and what we really were looking for was a paragraph that showed understanding (rather than checking off boxes in a rubric of "mentioned A, B, and C"; short essay questions, if you will), an expectation we communicated to the students. And that's aside from the actual project based grades, which were better still.
    - tshaddox 5y ago
      Yes, it’s difficult, but that’s why being a teacher is a job.
- aiisjustanif 5y ago
  You assume you would know the problem and that body language is truth.
  - soco 5y ago
    As a teacher you're pretty expected to know the problem you just asked, and there's no amount of body language which can replace an answer to the asked problem.
- bo1024 5y ago
  This doesn't scale, and teaching these days is expected to scale.
anon7725 5y ago
> “It’s become clear to me that algorithmic proctoring is a modern surveillance technology that reinforces white supremacy, sexism, ableism, and transphobia. The use of these tools is an invasion of students’ privacy and, often, a civil rights violation." Must all of the cards in the deck be played at each turn? Things cannot simply be bad/user hostile/privacy invading, etc.
- NikolaeVarius 5y ago
  Yes. Since its A) incredibly easy to play all the cards and b) its pretty much impossible to attempt to refute without being labeled all of the above and c) gives the accuser woke points Its win win win for the accuser
  - devilduck 5y ago
    Of course! Calling this out makes you a free-spirit and free-thinker. Definitely not brainwashed at all to be oppositional to that list of things that are obviously terrible.
  - r00fus 5y ago
    b) is untrue. It's pretty clear when fake accusations are BS and you don't have to be "labeled" to call them out. It does require you to engage with people directly.
    - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
      Im calling out this accusation as fake and unsubstantiated.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - r00fus 5y ago
        You're not being accused of anything, so whatever's fake is in your head.
wespiser_2018 5y ago
Agreed: even with room scans, you could defeat it by unrolling a giant cheatsheet on timer/remote control, and just stealing glances. Still, ProctorU it's a major deterrence to cheating, I'm just not sure it's worth the cost.

mechanical_bear 5y ago

> …reinforces white supremacy, sexism, ableism, and transphobia. Article proceeds to use a lot of words to not show any of these being true. I am against it for the general dystopian surveillance normalization it encourages. We don’t need to throw a word salad of made up progressive insults against it to resist its implementation.

javajosh 5y ago

I've never graded tests or papers, but I always assumed cheating would be obvious because if you go to chat with a student about the problem, they will not have anything to say.

ht_th 5y ago
True, but that is not the same as proving someone cheated. Besides, when you have too many students, you cannot talk to all of them one-by-one in any meaningful way. Or assess them in a meaningful way, to be honest. By the way, where I work, management pushes for stuff like proctoring, and more students, and "measurable" results, and so on. As a teacher, I don't care much about the whole grading show.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  > you have too many students, Then the students are not getting what they pay for.
Vrondi 5y ago
Well, if you put up an online exam that consists of only basic multiple choice tests, then you're making it a lot easier to cheat. That's the source of a lot of the trouble.
- professoretc 5y ago
  That's true, but questions that are difficult to cheat on are both difficult (time-consuming) to create, and difficult (time-consuming) to grade. Which means less time for other stuff, like actually teaching.
  - pfortuny 5y ago
    Not so much. They take time but to me it is a reasonable amount of time.
  - lostcolony 5y ago
    So I only have experience creating/grading tests as a TA, not a prof, but that wasn't my experience at all. The total time spent in creating a few good, easy to discuss questions, the answering of which would demonstrate understanding, and then reading them, thinking about them, and coming up with a grade, was probably actually less than the amount of time it took to create meaningful multiple choice questions that didn't have any ambiguity, and which weren't easy to intuit the answer even without understanding. Doubly so when we did away with "partial credit" answers, but instead made it so each question was 1 point (or otherwise all or nothing), you had, say, 5 of them, and what we really were looking for was a paragraph that showed understanding (rather than checking off boxes in a rubric of "mentioned A, B, and C"; short essay questions, if you will), an expectation we communicated to the students. And that's aside from the actual project based grades, which were better still.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    Yes, it’s difficult, but that’s why being a teacher is a job.
aiisjustanif 5y ago
You assume you would know the problem and that body language is truth.
- soco 5y ago
  As a teacher you're pretty expected to know the problem you just asked, and there's no amount of body language which can replace an answer to the asked problem.
bo1024 5y ago
This doesn't scale, and teaching these days is expected to scale.

anon7725 5y ago

> “It’s become clear to me that algorithmic proctoring is a modern surveillance technology that reinforces white supremacy, sexism, ableism, and transphobia. The use of these tools is an invasion of students’ privacy and, often, a civil rights violation." Must all of the cards in the deck be played at each turn? Things cannot simply be bad/user hostile/privacy invading, etc.

NikolaeVarius 5y ago
Yes. Since its A) incredibly easy to play all the cards and b) its pretty much impossible to attempt to refute without being labeled all of the above and c) gives the accuser woke points Its win win win for the accuser
- devilduck 5y ago
  Of course! Calling this out makes you a free-spirit and free-thinker. Definitely not brainwashed at all to be oppositional to that list of things that are obviously terrible.
- r00fus 5y ago
  b) is untrue. It's pretty clear when fake accusations are BS and you don't have to be "labeled" to call them out. It does require you to engage with people directly.
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    Im calling out this accusation as fake and unsubstantiated.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - r00fus 5y ago
      You're not being accused of anything, so whatever's fake is in your head.

wespiser_2018 5y ago

Agreed: even with room scans, you could defeat it by unrolling a giant cheatsheet on timer/remote control, and just stealing glances. Still, ProctorU it's a major deterrence to cheating, I'm just not sure it's worth the cost.