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Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

nytimes.com

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Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#51

Post by mschuster91 »

pksebben wrote: post #46
josh_fyi wrote: post #15

This will mean more tests in proctored test centers like Pearson VUE. Many students and professionals taking tests cheat casually and without embarrassment: It is seen as simply an efficient way to maximize grades.

one sort of wonders what the value in standardized testing is, in a world with such easy access to information.

None at all any more, but it would force everyone to a revolutionary project of re-thinking half of how our societies work - and there are a lot of people with deep pockets and heavy interest in keeping the status quo.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#52

Post by blitzar »

Claude_Shannon wrote: post #9
Teever wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take home tests are a thing. I've never had one, but from what I've heard they're the kind of thing that if done properly ends up being a better way to test people, but they're harder for instructors to implement.

I guess so. Most of the tests I;ve taken at college were the same tasks as in previous years, just with changed numbers. ... or not. That also happened.

Exam questions have to be approved, re-use the old one and it sails through. Write a new one from scratch ... takes time.

Typically you just use the questions from ~5 years ago and rotate them through.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#53

Post by Barrin92 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #3

The problem at the core is not spyware and "room checks", they are just a symptom - the question rather is how exams are designed and why schools and universities go to such drastic lengths to prevent cheating. Most tests are essentially nothing more than tests for the ability of rote memorization - they don't (really) check if the students actually understood the material and are able to apply it to new situations (…

are any of these criticims backed by evidence? Rote memorization is one of the, if not the most important backbone of excellence in any discipline. Pianists play scales, chess players memorize and repeat, athletes do the same, virtually any excellent programmer I've met shares one trait, they program a lot.

frontal teaching to large audiences isn't dehumanizing, it's simply effective reflected empirically by the large amounts of excellent graduates coming out of countries that focus heavily on that style of teaching.

I've never met a world class mathematician coming from a hippie waldorf school, I've met plenty coming out of the Soviet education system.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#54

Post by astrobe_ »

khazhoux wrote: post #25

Can someone please describe this "scan" technology? The article didn't. I'm picturing a swarm of small hovering drones sweeping their blue laser beams over your bedroom office, before one of them finishes with an accusative scan of your retina.

It's probably just a faculty asking the student to make a 360 with the webcam, according to what they did in my country.

That procedure is full of holes, though. There are so many ways to cheat when you don't take a test on-site, that it's not even funny. Those tests have to be performed with a computer on to begin with. I've heard that in some cases, there was testing software that would scan the computer too, similar to games' anti-cheat devices.

Schools first implemented that procedure in a hurry then stuck to it, and they thought they could violate privacy "a little" because states and countries themselves adopted exceptional laws that limited human rights. That felt wrong to me when it happened, and I am glad that at least a judge in the US confirmed it was wrong.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#55

Post by paskozdilar »

josh_fyi wrote: post #15

This will mean more tests in proctored test centers like Pearson VUE. Many students and professionals taking tests cheat casually and without embarrassment: It is seen as simply an efficient way to maximize grades.

Hopefully this will successfully separate learning from certification, which will prevent learners from being punished because of cheaters.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#56

Post by webmobdev »

madsbuch wrote: post #16

We are definitely in the period where we are seeing the limits of scalability of current technology. Google et al. eliminated customer service, schools are educating on a massive scale, etc. We always have the option of oral onsite exams as has been custom for many years, and accept that education does not scale excessively. We can also keep developing surveillance tech and other AI solutions to the problem and handl…

> Google et al. eliminated customer service

Google not choosing to provide customer service is not something either businesses or consumers should look forward to.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#57

Post by Hamuko »

josh_fyi wrote: post #15

This will mean more tests in proctored test centers like Pearson VUE. Many students and professionals taking tests cheat casually and without embarrassment: It is seen as simply an efficient way to maximize grades.

Last time I had to take a certification test, I chose the test center over doing it remotely since I didn't want to install whatever spyware they wanted me to install on my work laptop.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#58

Post by astrobe_ »

DocTomoe wrote: post #18

As a mid-career engineer, I had to renew a professional certification during the Covid-19 times. That recertification was set up as a proctored online exam. After 15 minutes of removing random stuff from my desk, under my desk, on my walls, including but not limited to disassembling a wall-mounted TV set, as instructed by the proctor, I gave up. I rented an office at a co-working place that was sterile white. Then th…

I don't believe it can be "you can take the test remotely if you let us search the room first" (that judge put an end on this, so it cannot anymore at least in the US). It is impossible to prevent cheating in this context, no matter how hard you try. Their paranoia in your case was foolish.

What they could do is letting people take written test in a lightly controlled environment (just a webcam with audio, no 360/scan before tests), and then complement it with a Q&A part. Yes, that's probably more time consuming and more expensive.

Re: Remote scan of student’s room before test violated his privacy, judge rules

#60

Post by thaumasiotes »

pksebben wrote: post #46
josh_fyi wrote: post #15

This will mean more tests in proctored test centers like Pearson VUE. Many students and professionals taking tests cheat casually and without embarrassment: It is seen as simply an efficient way to maximize grades.

one sort of wonders what the value in standardized testing is, in a world with such easy access to information.

There are two main purposes:

1. You can't look for information if you don't know it exists.

2. Most standardized tests aren't used in the expectation that the testee's knowledge will matter in the future. Instead, the idea is that people who score higher will be generally more competent at whatever it is you want them to do.

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