81–90 of 538 posts
His GoFundMe if you want to contribute: https://www.gofundme.com/f/stand-against-proctorio
Have an upvote.
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…
In that way they also create a floor of wealth and/or visibility for people to realistically qualify to criticize them. Those people are more likely to be investors than critics.
It also proves to investors that they can defend themselves and are not risky.
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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 t…
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Orwell is the modern Machiavelli. In about 100 years, people will be wondering if 1984 was satire/criticism or an actual blueprint for effective government in the digital age, in the same way the real aim of Il Principe has been endlessly debated for centuries.
In contrast, Orwell's fundamental rejection of the totalitarian surveillance society is well known and documented. Even in 100 years, those who are interested can read it all.
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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…
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If your software is ethical, why smear your own name by bringing a spurious lawsuit against a singled out individual like this? There are real concerns around privacy with software like this - what will happen if some criminal finds an exploit in Proctorio's software? This kind of monitoring software is often designed to be hard to detect or bypass, and installs itself in ways that are challenging to remove. Developm…
Agreed, the lawsuit is a terrible thing to do full stop, and doesn't seem to make business sense either. Maybe they think his critiques are worse than the bad press. I agree about the privacy concerns, and in normal circumstances I wouldn't use proctoring software, because all my students would be local (or they would have signed up as distance students knowing this kind of thing would be needed). I would also have m…
How is it a real problem (I've never cheated but always felt I got fair grades, not affected by whatever cheaters did)? If a student memorizes everything they need for the exam today, but forget all of it tomorrow, is that useful? That's a very real thing happening every day in exams, and nobody highlights it as as big a problem as cheating (I think it's a bigger problem actually, but the solution is not necessarily in finding those who can do that, but in optimizing the material so memorization is not such a core part of it before you start specializing).
In careers where such things really matter (think medicine), people only progress by demonstrating actual knowledge and understanding while gaining real-life experience. We don't get a surgeon out of a medical school that hasn't shadowed a surgeon and been quizzed on things to do next.
It's similar with engineering: you are given smaller, simpler things when you start off, and you build up your knowledge and experience before being given the role of a lead engineer for an airplane engine.
Exam grades are never used as a measure of someone's knowledge on the topic, though a paper they authored, or their dissertation, naturally, might.
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…
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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.
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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…
> 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 way through life too?
For one thing, all the harm that incompetent professionals can cause - and in a moddern society, the scope of that is not inconsiderable - in fact, Proctorio is probably an example.
Let's not lose focus on the real problem here, which is Proctorio being an aggressive vendor of garbage.