A student and her tools -

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  • The use of “school” surveillance software has tended to become widespread since the appearance of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the article by our partner L'ADN.

  • Their “too rigid” technology forces supervised students to focus on their own behavior.

  • These softwares are more and more contested, without great results so far.

Proctorio

,

ProctorU

,

ExamSoft

… Surveillance software used to control exams has become widespread in the United States since the start of the pandemic.

On social networks and in the American press, students report stressful situations, software malfunctions, examples of invasive functionalities, and inequalities in the face of these new digital tools.

These software, the purpose of which is to detect possible cheating, can among other things: make a 360-degree scan of the room in which the student is located, follow his gaze

via

the webcam, detect the movements of his mouse, his mouth, a noise in the room, record video clips and screenshots when behavior seems suspicious (if the student looks away from the screen more regularly than other students working for the same exam, for example ) ...

A zero for reading the question aloud

Rigid functionalities that give rise to absurd situations.

On Tik Tok, a tearful student says she got zero on her exam because ProctorU identified a cheating case while she was just repeating the question out loud.

[1984] A student confused by the 0 put by her teacher because the ProctorU "real-time monitoring during home exam" software detected the "talk" fault when she was simply repeating the question aloud to herself!

https://t.co/SQLfioaXwK

- Alexis Kauffmann (@framaka) October 1, 2020

In a

New York Times article

, several students say they are distressed by the constant surveillance imposed by the software.

“The mere fact that professors can see me have my tics over and over again feels like an invasion of privacy because it's something that my whole life I've managed to hide,” says one student, who suffers from involuntary movements of the mouth.

Bug and discrimination

In addition, some students believe they are victims of discrimination because of this software.

In

Venture Beats

, a black-skinned college student explains being forced to over-illuminate her face with a light that gives her headaches, she says, in order for ExamSoft's facial recognition algorithm to recognize her face.

@ExamSoft I FINALLY figured out ON MY OWN 4 hours later (still on hold for an EXAM SOFT chat rep) HOW TO GET TO MY MOCK EXAM ... ONLY TO BE TOLD THE SYSTEM CANT RECOGNIZE ME.

I AM IN A BOARD ROOM WITH ALL OF THE LIGHTS TURNED ON AND THE SUN WAS STILL UP.

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.

pic.twitter.com/7K3yKT1y4n

- Futureesq1990 (@ futureesq1990) September 17, 2020

The situation is also complicated for students who can hardly find a quiet place at home to work.

They are concerned that the software will detect nearby noises and consider them to be an attempt to cheat.

In France, HEC's rebellion against telesurveillance

On campuses, students are organizing to demand the removal of these monitoring software, reports

Vice

.

Petitions have been signed by students in various states including California, Illinois, Oregon ...

In France, the use of telesurveillance by certain establishments during confinement also hit the headlines.

At the end of May, nearly 300 HEC students wrote a letter to management denouncing the use of Proctorio and Zoom to monitor exams.

Following this initiative, the management of HEC decided to maintain the use of the software, but gave the students the opportunity to take the exam on site at the end of August, explains

France Inter

.

Universities and schools forced to reduce their reception capacity

With the resumption of the epidemic in the territory, the higher education establishments located in the enhanced alert zone and in the maximum alert zone must, since Tuesday, October 1, reduce their reception capacity to 50%.

Some establishments such as Rennes School of Business or EM Strasbourg, from which several students have been infected, have already chosen to close their campus or to switch a significant portion of their students to distancing (1000 students for EM Strasbourg).

The question of how remote examinations are carried out and how they are monitored could arise again.


The original article was written by Marine Protais and published on the DNA website.

  • Spying

  • Software

  • Monitoring

  • Student

  • High-Tech

  • Video surveillance