Using 'AI-based software like Proctorio and ProctorU' to monitor online exams is a really bad idea, says uni panel
- Reference: 1629502205
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/08/20/ai_proctoring_software/
- Source link:
Acknowledging that some form of online proctoring is necessary to discourage academic misconduct, the committee concluded, "we strongly recommend against the use of AI-based software like Proctorio and ProctorU."
The [1]Report of the Academic Integrity Committee about Online Testing and Assessment, [2]spotted by Megan Menchaca, education reporter for the Austin-American Statesman, is said to have been included in a university official's recent message to faculty.
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AI-based software to watch over remote students as they take online tests – "academic surveillance software" to detractors – has flourished during the COVID-19 pandemic. Large numbers of students have been studying remotely and schools believe they need a way to prevent cheating.
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But the software that's been deployed has been widely criticized by students and privacy advocates. The concern centers around the inability to audit the software source code and the possibility that these systems rely on flawed algorithms and biased or arbitrary signals to label students cheaters.
Critics also worry that the software can't account for varied student living conditions and is vulnerable to racial bias – eg, motion tracking that produces different results with different skin tones – and cognitive bias such as gaze tracking that flags ADHD behaviors as suspicious.
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Such criticism last year led UC Berkeley
[7]PDF
and [8]Baruch College in New York to stop using remote proctoring products. In February, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [9]said it will [10]drop Proctorio after this summer due to "significant accessibility concerns."When in doubt, sue
Amid this backlash, proctoring software maker Proctorio sued critics, alleging last year that Ian Linkletter, a learning technology specialist at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada, violated US copyright law by linking to the company's publicly viewable videos. That case remains ongoing in Canada, and has forced Linkletter to [11]appeal for funds to defend himself through the costly legal process.
Proctorio also last year filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown complaint against Miami University computer science student Erik Johnson seeking the removal of posts on Twitter that were critical of the company. Twitter removed the posts and [12]later restored them .
The firm's legal crusade prompted pushback from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which [13]said the company should not be able "to abuse copyright law to undermine their critics."
[14]Uni revealed it killed off its PhD-applicant screening AI – just as its inventors gave a lecture about the tech
[15]'Meritless': Exam software maker under fire for suing teacher who tweeted links to biz's unlisted YouTube vids
[16]Twitter uses HackerOne bounties to find biases in its image-cropping AI model
[17]Zoom incompatible with GDPR, claims data protection watchdog for the German city of Hamburg
The UT Austin committee began working on its report after student councils in the spring of 2021 asked the university to get rid of AI proctoring software, which was used widely during the 2020-2021 academic year.
The committee asked student leaders and faculty to provide information about how the software was employed and decided that it just wasn't worth it.
"The invasive nature of the tools as well as the warnings that the tools may send to the screen during the exam cause high levels of anxiety," the report says.
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"Although these tools were used extensively by faculty in academic year 2020-2021, only 27 cases were referred to the Student Conduct and Academic Integrity office as potential violations of academic integrity, and of these only 13 were upheld. Thus, the psychological (and financial) costs of the tool do not seem to be worth the small benefit of using it."
Trust the teachers
The report goes on to suggest alternative methods of watching over students during tests, such as Zoom for small groups, and other academic software like Canvas Quizzes, Gradescope, and Panopto. It also recommends that instructors consider rethinking how they assess student progress in order to reduce online test anxiety.
The University of Texas at Austin, Proctorio, and ProctorU did not respond to requests for comment.
In an email to The Register , Linkletter – still awaiting a ruling on his effort to dismiss Proctorio's copyright complaint under Canada's anti-SLAPP statute, the Protection of Public Participation Act – said what stands out to him from the UT Austin report is the finding that Proctorio just isn't worth it.
"Every institution should be taking a hard look at whether Proctorio is worth the 'psychological cost' mentioned in the report, let alone the expense," he said.
"Over half of the 27 students accused had their academic integrity cases tossed. Thousands of students were surveilled, at great expense, for what? How much faculty and staff time was wasted? How much unnecessary heartbreak caused?
"Students understand that surveillance is wrong. They know how the technology works. There is no technical explanation that will reduce the harm being done – it simply needs to stop.
"The only way institutions can demonstrate they are listening to students is to stop using academic surveillance software." ®
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[1] https://utexas.app.box.com/s/h9qiyw3omn57irg2o36uwbwnf6lgzfu8
[2] https://twitter.com/meganmmenchaca/status/1428475143026847746
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YSB6eJ-g3mp08uefu7DSYgAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YSB6eJ-g3mp08uefu7DSYgAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YSB6eJ-g3mp08uefu7DSYgAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YSB6eJ-g3mp08uefu7DSYgAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/guidance_and_recommendations_from_the_working_group_on_exams_and_proctoring.pdf
[8] https://provost.baruch.cuny.edu/messages/regarding-proctortrack-and-online-proctoring/
[9] https://emails.illinois.edu/newsletter/1970177238.html
[10] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/02/01/u-illinois-says-goodbye-proctorio
[11] https://www.gofundme.com/f/stand-against-proctorio
[12] https://twitter.com/ejohnson99/status/1324542661991239681
[13] https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-sues-proctorio-behalf-student-it-falsely-accused-copyright-infringement-get
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/08/texas_compsci_phd_ai/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/25/canadian_educator_fights_lawsuit_from/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/02/twitter_now_crowdsourcing_solutions_to/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/17/zoom_incompatible_with_gdpr_hamburg_warning/
[18] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YSB6eJ-g3mp08uefu7DSYgAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: They never should've used it in the first place.
Uh... really? Hyperbole much?
Every school I attended in the before times did the same sort of stuff, just without technology. Every test I ever took had at least one person in the room to watch the students and make sure we weren't cheating. That means someone spent 1-2 hours constantly watching us. Making sure we weren't looking at our neighbor's answers, searching for answers on Google, etc. I'd like to think we all turned out ok even despite that surveillance.
AFAI can tell, that's all this software attempts to do. Though, it sounds like it doesn't do a great job of it. Poor pattern recognition and threatening messages suck, but I appreciate that it doesn't just fail the students, it refers the data to a human for verification.
Of course, cheating was rarely as common as some people would like you to believe. But once in a while you got a mass outbreak that made for a good story to tell every semester. So, it sounds like this made a good deterrent, even if it didn't catch many students. Convincing the students not to cheat is a lot better than catching them in the act.
Though, if their software is doing something more than just watching the student while they take a test, then they should be called out for that (then we can burn 'em at the stake). Pretty sure we had an article a while back about some software installed on underage students' laptops that didn't necessarily stop recording outside of class. Software that makes child porn never goes over well, not for the software company and not for the school that installed it.
We don't need no education...
-- especially this way
Its not really AI, is it?
There's a lot of software our there that takes a variety of inputs, munges them into some kind of index and then issues pass / fail type results based on that index. All of this software is characterized by it using unpublished, proprietary, algorithms and an aggressive legal attitude to anyone who questions the validity of the results. It doesn't matter whether its proctoring examinations, watching the work habits of employees or whatever, its a Black Box that both the vendors and the people who signed off on leasing it will aggressively defend as if their lives depend on it.
(Its been quite a long time since I had to do examinations but I recall that at anything beyond 'O' level it really didn't matter if you cheated because the questions were set up to probe subject understanding, not knowledge. Having all the facts at your fingertips is useless if you don't know how to apply them.)
They never should've used it in the first place.
Any program that takes over control of your devices (EG: mic & webcam) & prevents you from using them as you see fit (EG: not at all) is by definition malware that doesn't belong anywhere near the machine.
You want to make sure they're not cheating, fine, but requiring the installation of what amounts to destroying their privacy in the name of your security is the absolute wrong way to go about it.
What message do you think that sends? What lesson will the students learn from the experience? That their privacy isn't worth two shakes of a lamb's tail, that they can't be trusted not to act like mature adults, & that they should just suck it up & deal with it like the good little sheep you want them to be? What kind of adults do you want to train? What kind of future do you want to leave for the children that will then be in charge of your retirement home? How well do you think they'll treat you once the power shoe is on the other foot?
Just don't use the software, it's not worth it & never has been.