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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

#71

Post by christophilus »

sireat wrote: post #35
mkl wrote: post #6

I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…

I am a lector at a University and would never force my students to install something that is so privacy invading as Proctorio on student's own computers. If you absolutely need this type of monitoring it should be done at some sort of testing center on cleanly imaged computers. I could see it being done for something absolutely crucial such as a bar exam. Proctorio and its ilk should not be used for simple mid-terms…

> I could see it being done for something absolutely crucial such as a bar exam.

Why? How did we ever produce lawyers in the past without Proctorio?

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

#72

Post by mkl »

sireat wrote: post #35
mkl wrote: post #6

I'm sympathetic to the concerned individual threatened and harmed by corporate lawsuits, but I don't think I share the underlying concern. > In Linkletter’s view, customers and users were not getting the whole story. The software performed all kinds of invasive tracking, like watching for “abnormal” eye movements, head movements, and other behaviors branded suspicious by the company. The invasive tracking and filming…

I am a lector at a University and would never force my students to install something that is so privacy invading as Proctorio on student's own computers. If you absolutely need this type of monitoring it should be done at some sort of testing center on cleanly imaged computers. I could see it being done for something absolutely crucial such as a bar exam. Proctorio and its ilk should not be used for simple mid-terms…

If you have a testing centre you don't need this kind of software, and if your students are scattered across the world due to Covid-19 travel restrictions, you can't have a testing centre for them. I consider invigilation absolutely crucial in a professional engineering degree in mid-terms and finals (engineers are more likely to hurt more people than lawyers). I don't think this kind of software is a crutch for the lazy; it's more work to organise and manage than human invigilators, and doesn't scale as well.

I don't think it's a slippery slope. We will have significantly more local students than remote for the foreseeable future, and the local students are invigilated in person. We have students wanting to opt into remote study, including using this software, but so far if they're local we tell them no (except under extreme circumstances).

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

#73

Post by mkl »

christophilus wrote: post #71
sireat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a lector at a University and would never force my students to install something that is so privacy invading as Proctorio on student's own computers. If you absolutely need this type of monitoring it should be done at some sort of testing center on cleanly imaged computers. I could see it being done for something absolutely crucial such as a bar exam. Proctorio and its ilk should not be used for simple mid-terms…

> I could see it being done for something absolutely crucial such as a bar exam. Why? How did we ever produce lawyers in the past without Proctorio?

In person exams. In a pandemic, that can be a problem.

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

#74

Post by jasonjayr »

necovek wrote: post #69
mkl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you've seen exam-sitting-for-hire in action, you believe it. Most students are honest and genuinely want to learn, and the few that are dishonest cause everyone to be subjected to this. It sucks for everyone, students and staff.

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…

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 the value of your diploma.

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

#75

Post by DonHopkins »

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…

Proctorio sounds like Factorio for assholes.

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

#76

Post by heraclius »

everyone wrote: post #34
SEMW wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...Or, just maybe, from the English word "proctor", meaning someone who invigilates an exam. Which is from the Latin "procurator" meaning overseer, unrelated to the Greek procto-

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.

Scotland’s Procurators Fiscal are fairly important and frequently referred to.

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

#77

Post by koonsolo »

DocTomoe wrote: post #54
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?

In the past, we solved this problem by not having online proctoring, we had exams in front of a board. Maybe if the necessity of such demonstrations is paramount, doing them online is not the correct answer.

I guess this is a consequence of the Covid pandemic, where such a thing is not allowed at the moment.

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

#78

Post by koonsolo »

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

and because it's in US.

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

#79

Post by mkl »

amcoastal wrote: post #66
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…

As both a TA and a student during the virus, we did better and so can you. Stop trying to shoehorn your in person lesson plans and exams into virtual and design new material and tests. Dont be a shitty teacher just because you're too lazy to change your now dated ways.

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.

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

#80

Post by aravindet »

mkl wrote: post #51
cycomanic wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct this is a staff failure, the failure lies in using the software in the first place. If we agree that the current situation is so exceptional that we need to fully monitor all students taking exams (and that's still a big if, I also am a university teacher, we don't use any monitoring system. There are other solutions as well such as taking oral exams...), one could simply hire a bunch of proctors who…

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?

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