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EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

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Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#101

Post by davrosthedalek »

christophilus wrote: post #65
vanviegen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like proctorio, but in situations where it is really necessary for students to demonstrate a certain level of knowledge (think: medicine), I just don't see a reasonable alternative to online proctoring, given the circumstances. Why would you say that this is evidence of a 'screwed' system?

It’s hard to see it in any other light. You could always have online exams happen in front of an online board— take the human interaction we’ve always used and just move it online. Proctorio reflects the cost cutting, hyper systemization of education, which is a trend that— every time I see it— seems to be antithetical to actual education.

In a room, I can make sure that there is no other person there, that there is no big monitor with solutions, notes, whatever. I can also not see whether the students has another browser open with one of the cheat-websites where one of his faster colleagues has already uploaded the solution. I'm luckily in a field where we can do open-book exams without too much problems, which makes the "hidden notes" a non-issue, but one wants to be sure that it's actually the student who solves the problem. That is much easier in a class room.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#102

Post by mkl »

amcoastal wrote: post #95
mkl wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't make assumptions or resort to baseless insults. We have designed entirely new fully-online interactive courses in response to this. In other courses, where we have e.g. 640 local students and 10 online, they need to sit the same test for it to be fair.

Sounds like you need to design an online version of that course if you're going to allow online students to take it.

The expense isn't justified for 10 students, since this may well be the only year that course is offered online. They are not getting a bad deal out of it. The fully new online courses are first year, and the expectation is that students will come to study in person for the remaining years of their degree. The other course I'm talking about is second year, but those 10 students can't get into the country at present - a temporary obstacle.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#103

Post by teachingassist »

mkl wrote: post #85
necovek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fe…

When your institution's reputation is at risk, you want to prevent it. Honest students don't get a lesser grade; that's not the problem. If the cheaters want to cheat their way through life, that's their problem. My problem is to make sure the rest of my students end up with a well-respected degree. I.e. the problem is being solved for the honest students, the ones I want to spend my time on.

> I.e. the problem is being solved for the honest students, the ones I want to spend my time on.

As the original commenter notes, here the problem is being solved for "well-behaved" students, in a way which is easy enough for dishonest students to bypass and present themselves as well-behaved.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#104

Post by devenblake »

christophilus wrote: post #98
jasonjayr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I despise software like this and how high-stakes and petty it can be, keep in mind that it's in the institution's interests to not only provide a quality education, but to defend the value of their brand. You might have worked very hard for a diploma from University X, but if it was found that University X was handing out diplomas like candy to other students that were not as academically rigorous, it weakens t…

Requiring distopian spyware doesn’t weaken your brand. It destroys it. For most of history, reputable universities built their brand just fine without any software at all.

Totally agree. I personally chose not to go to college (I'm graduating HS this year) because of things like Proctorio and Zoom becoming more common.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#106

Post by jimmySixDOF »

cycomanic wrote: post #28

So lots of people commenting that they don't have an issue with such software. Fine, but that's an entirely different debate. This is about the company sueing someone for criticising the software, by detailing how it is supposed to work. So even if we accept that we need such software, do we really want to go down the path that software companies can sue people for talking about how it works and criticising them?

Agreed the problem here is the lawsuit. They should have just ignored this guy and gone on with life. Now the they got the EFF to deal with and it serves them right.

On the software side there is no easy way to do fraud auditing and that's that. I just recently took a professional PeopleCert exam online with a guy watching me through my webcam in a closed room I had to display in advance etc and temp installed some invasive application. So what ? If there was a better way to deal with the unfortunate fact that some people will cheat then I would be all for it but just getting all shook up about a temporary set of specific restrictions for a singular type milestone event is a little unrealistic in my book.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#107

Post by mkl »

aravindet wrote: post #80
mkl wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copy-pasting from my other comment: > I see it as a currently-necessary annoyance, as the least bad option. The alternatives have greater deficiencies: human invigilators using Zoom etc. don't scale (institution experience); oral exams don't scale (my experience moderating such assessments); no invigilation leads to cheating (by few students but enough to be a real problem, especially for professional qualifications…

> human invigilators using Zoom etc. don't scale (institution experience) Could you explain further why this did not scale? I'm imagining an invigilator watching video feeds using an interface similar to, say, that used by security guards to monitor surveillance feeds. I would think that a single human invigilator can monitor more students using this system than an in-person setting. What am I missing?

In person, a single proctor can monitor 200+ students; our eyes capture far more detail and field of view than computer screens, and our peripheral vision is tuned for detecting unexpected motion. With Zoom, either you have one meeting with everyone in it, in which case students can look directly at each other, or you have a separate meeting for every student, in which case you need a large number of devices, all visible at the same time. I can't see the former scaling past 49, and I can't see the latter scaling past 20. If you had some software designed specifically for this and several big screens, it would still be pretty hard to pay anywhere near as close attention as you can in person.

On top of that, there's always a bunch of annoying mucking about getting set up for Zoom invigilation: angle of camera, light, checking environment, etc. All that needs communication to and fro, and it can take up to 5 minutes for a single student. Now multiply that by say 100 (a bit of parallelism is possible, but individual communication is needed with each student).

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#108

Post by fxtentacle »

mkl wrote: post #27
fxtentacle wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The software will automatically block your screen, meaning you cannot finish the exam if it accidentally activates. "I was on the second question of an exam composed of 45 questions and I got a black screen. I'm still waiting to see what's going to happen as this is my final......... I tried to access the exam but was locked out and when i went to the exam the chat option wasn't available either. I emailed my profess…

The software sounds faulty. The black screen is terrible UX; it should just silently set a bookmark and let the student continue. The overall outcome (and the student's experience and stress) is ultimately a staff issue. The professor should have been on call, and should have been able to get the student back into the questions, or, failing that, to offer another sitting. I have done both of these, among other remedi…

I fully agree with you here that bugs in the software can be mitigated by having knowledgeable staff. But people can only be prepared for it if they hear about the issues beforehand.

That's why I find it so offensive that Proctorio is suing what appears to be university staff to silence them.

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#109

Post by Smaug123 »

everyone wrote: post #38
everyone wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah i found that.. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/proctor Though in fairness proctor / procurator are extremely antiquated english words, that have survived in common usage only in the US for some reason.

I reckon the majority of english speakers who read 'Proctorio' will immediately think anus.

Google Trends: "proctor" is dramatically more common than "proctologist". I'd go so far as to say you're objectively wrong.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=proctor,pr...

Re: EFF sues Proctorio on behalf of student falsely DMCA'd

#110

Post by distances »

devenblake wrote: post #104
christophilus wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requiring distopian spyware doesn’t weaken your brand. It destroys it. For most of history, reputable universities built their brand just fine without any software at all.

Totally agree. I personally chose not to go to college (I'm graduating HS this year) because of things like Proctorio and Zoom becoming more common.

Honestly, it's fine to not choose higher education but IMHO use of surveillance methods should affect where you apply, not whether you apply.
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