Big Proctor – Inside Higher Ed
Is the fight against cheating during remote instruction worth enlisting third-party student surveillance platforms?
Online proctoring has surged during the coronavirus pandemic, and so too have concerns about the practice, in which students take exams under the watchful eyes (human or automated) of third-party programs.
Chief among faculty and student concerns are student privacy and increasing test anxiety via a sense of being surveilled. Pedagogically, some experts also argue that the whole premise of asking students to recall information under pressure without access to their course materials is flawed. This, they say, may only motivate students to game the system, when cheating is what online proctoring services seek to prevent.
Of course, concerns about academic dishonesty are what gave rise to online exam proctoring in the first place. And the switch to rapid remote instruction provides new opportunities and motivations to cheat: everyone is away from campus, under considerable stress.