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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

#141

Post by derivagral »

mkl wrote: post #99
davrosthedalek wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many courses, the grades are curved, so cheaters might really make the grades of honest students worse. While I am against these surveillance software, making sure that tests are fair is very hard, especially since everything is online now thanks to COVID.

Not in my experience. I don't think there are enough cheaters to shift the curve (the noise from year to year is much more significant), and despite what you'd expect, the people hired to do others' assessments aren't necessarily very good at it!

A top 10 MBA program my partner went through had several people cheating in the program. I'll give you some anecdotal notes. Some cheaters get discovered and "outed" (esp those the group didn't like) when they brag during parties, some never gave up enough evidence to make an accusation official, others would talk about hiring CPAs for accounting exams/projects. Many in the class were concerned on whether normal study groups counted as cheating, as defined by the honor code!

A sibling program at the university exposed a cheating ring of ~15-20 people, and I think many were surprised that the result was to simply zero their grades for that class instead of more severe action.

/e I mention incidents and sizes since these programs are not thousands of students but tens or hundreds.

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

#142

Post by michaelt »

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.

For most of history, in-person exams were possible.

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

#143

Post by csomar »

northrup wrote: post #17

It’s as if nobody has ever read George Orwell’s 1984: “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself – anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper…

They just now found the tools to enforce it.

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

#144

Post by bryanrasmussen »

mannykannot wrote: post #90
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…

Realistically, if all existing diplomas were invalidated and the entire system of diploma-granting were to be stripped away from educational institutions, an equivalent would quickly be re-established by the free market - and it would probably resemble Proctorio. > 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 wa…

> if all existing diplomas were invalidated and the entire system of diploma-granting were to be stripped away from educational institutions, an equivalent would quickly be re-established by the free market - and it would probably resemble Proctorio.

coming soon to a tech interview near you.

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

#145

Post by vincentmarle »

fxtentacle wrote: post #5

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 color…

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.

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

#146

Post by leetcrew »

Guthur wrote: post #23
fxtentacle wrote: post #5

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 color…

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.

cheating was absolutely rampant when I was in college getting my CS degree. and that was with tests taken in person with the professor in the room! I'm sure students are even more brazen when all assignments are done at home.

I think at the very least, all exams ought to be designed as "open book" with a time limit. that at least eliminates the issue of students using unauthorized resources. I'm not sure what can be done about students who collaborate on exams or go so far as to hire someone to take it for them. perhaps a few students could be randomly selected for each assessment to explain a few over their answers over zoom?

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

#147

Post by mint2 »

helloguillecl wrote: post #32

I have a question for anyone who has seen similar situations. (I'm 35+ years old and have never work at a corporation except for some small gigs when I was 18, so I'm really ignorant of how these companies and internal decision making work) Why in the world would a company sue a critic, under weak legal arguments, thus buying themselves this kind of terrible negative publicity? Who will trust/like/or want to be assoc…

Backcountry is a generic term very commonly used in the outdoors community and features on numerous company names and products. The legal team of the online store backcountry decided they would sue any small company that had the generic term in their name.

It’s almost like suing any ‘cafe’ with ‘cafe’ their name after you start a business called ‘cafe’. Except this is the type of corporate stoogery that much of the outdoors community particularly loathes.

So yes the large outdoors company sicked corporate lawyers on small businesses who can’t afford legal fights to bully them into removing the very common outdoors term from their name. This caused a huge backlash and boycott and is why I still refuse to shop there and instead shop at rei and others.

That incident shows how corporate decision makers can be completely out of touch with their customers, their market, and reality.

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

#149

Post by elliekelly »

worik wrote: post #68
zibzab wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note also that the original lawsuit was for Ian tweeting about their public YouTube videos. How can this garbage lawauit be allowed to go on and cost a man $100.000 in lawyer fees??

Because the rules are made by lawyers

By lobbyists*

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

#150

Post by jkelleyrtp »

I personally believe education should just move forward into a world where cheating is impossible. Hands-on schools like Olin College of Engineering make it practically impossible to cheat... because you actually have to build something! Sure, plagiarism is still an issue, but that's much easier to control for than monitoring students while they take a test.
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