![]() For Windows users: 10 and 8 Operating systems.Its use has increased in over 1000 institutions of higher learning, and it has been labeled the ‘gold standard for making online exams secure.īefore we get to learn how to get around lockdown browser, let us see the system requirements first: Shea Swauger is an academic librarian and researcher at the University of Colorado Denver.A respondus lockdown browser refers to a custom browser that locks down the testing environment in a learning management system. Let’s choose compassion over surveillance. The best thing we in higher education can do is to start with the radical idea of trusting students. ![]() Technology didn’t invent the conditions for cheating and it won’t be what stops it. It doesn’t dilute the value of degrees or degrade institutional reputations, and student’s aren’t trying to cheat their way into being your surgeon. These products can’t be reformed they should be abandoned.Ĭheating is not the threat to society that test proctoring companies would have you believe. While that might be less racist, it would still discriminate against people with disabilities, breastfeeding parents, and people who are neuroatypical. But even if face recognition technology were banned, proctoring software could still exist as a program that tracks the movements of students’ eyes and bodies. Given that universities pride themselves on making evidence-based decisions, this is a glaring oversight.įortunately, there are movements underway to ban proctoring software and ban face recognition technologies on campuses, as well as congressional bills to ban the US federal government from using face recognition. To my knowledge, there isn’t a single peer-reviewed or controlled study that shows proctoring software effectively detects or prevents cheating. This zealousness would be slightly more understandable if there was any evidence that these programs actually did what they claim. Products that violate people’s privacy and discriminate against them go against my professional ethos, and it’s deeply concerning to see such products eagerly adopted by institutions of higher education. After 9/11, when the Patriot Act authorized the US Department of Homeland Security to access library patron records in their search for terrorists, many librarians started using software that deleted a patron’s record once a book was returned. Privacy is paramount to librarians like me because patrons trust us with their data. They can also see each student’s location based on their IP address. In many cases, professors can access the recordings of their students at any time, and even download these recordings to their personal machines. These products film students in their homes and often require them to complete “room scans,” which involve using their camera to show their surroundings. That means students with medical conditions who must use the bathroom or administer medication frequently would be considered similarly suspect.īeyond all the ways that proctoring software can discriminate against students, algorithmic proctoring is also a significant invasion of privacy. But several proctoring programs will flag noises in the room or anyone who leaves the camera’s view as nefarious. If you’ve ever tried to answer emails while caring for kids, you know how impossible it can be to get even a few uninterrupted minutes in front of the computer. Students with children are also penalized by these systems. ![]() But if you’re a white cis man (like most of the developers who make facial recognition software), you’ll probably be fine. Similar kinds of discrimination can happen if a student is trans or non-binary. The software couldn’t validate her identity and she was denied access to tests so often that she had to go to her professor to make other arrangements. Now these same biases are showing up in test proctoring software that disproportionately hurts marginalized students.Ī Black woman at my university once told me that whenever she used Proctorio's test proctoring software, it always prompted her to shine more light on her face. In general, technology has a pattern of reinforcing structural oppression like racism and sexism. ![]()
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