Canadian universities using invasive spyware "Proctortrack" to monitor students during exams. Includes: facial recognition, room scans, knuckle scans

[Doobeedoo]

Oh I'd find a way. 

Also, what kind od exam lasts 3h what.. 

[CarlBar]

9 hours ago, Eaglerino said:

it's not a difficult concept to section away part of your living area only for test taking. and you can't use the restroom when you take a test in a real classroom either

 

1. Under normal circumstances no. Under COVID circumstances however it's much harder as many of the measures you'd take to make that possibble require other people or to get people to go out. look at Linus doing WAN show from home, he had one of his kids stick their head in one time. Was cute to watch on a live-stream, but would be a huge no-no during an exam.

 

2. Using the restroom is absolutely not banned in the UK, i'm not sure it would even be legal to do so. A teacher escorts you there and back for reference. Also we had a fire drill during a few of my exams, (different times in my schooling so different exam sets). We just got extra time on the exam.

 

3. Also what about people that don't meet the hardware specs. I guarantee you kin the UK the school/college would not be allowed to just fail you on the exam on that one under normal circumstances. 

[wanderingfool2]

  

7 hours ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

My point was that this seems like a pointless violation of privacy that could lead to innocent students getting disqualified for no reason. What if a student can't afford better hardware or lives in a crowded place? They have no choice but to fail the exam. And on the other hand what prevents a student who has more hardware available to just set up a second PC and cheat with that through a second monitor/splitting one monitor? 

 

Given we are talking university level education, a laptop is usually an assumed given for a course anyways (and even older laptops would meet that spec).  Actually you could get a webcam with microphone for like $35CAD or less...and I can tell you that while affordability is a thing, going through university a $35 school expense is minor compared to the many other requires expenses of attending school.  If things like that are an issue, or getting access to a room that isn't busy then talking to the academic advisor to take the exam in person or to provide a room that would be suitable.  (While there is a blanket statement that was made regarding "drop the class" or fail, I would treat that as a blanket statement to prevent a lot of the people who would refuse the software if they were allowed to)

 

I don't think it is a pointless violation either, it's about trying to come up with a solution that will diswayed cheating.

 

7 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

I can already think of a way, run the exam computer in a virtual machine with the monitoring software running in the VM and it would be impossible for them to distinguish between the user doing things on the VM or doing them on the host. The eye tracker would see them looking at the screen, the keylogger would only capture from inside the VM, the only audio would be typing and you can easily get a small rubber keyboard hidden out of view somewhere. Using VMWare its possible to edit XML files to remove all trace that the PC is a virtual machine and you can even rename devices in device manager fairly easily so non of the hardware says anything about VM, VMWare or Virtual Hardware.

 

You could literally cheat to your hearts content right in front of them, while they're recording and they would never know.

And then you are flagged for cheating, since it likely has proper measures of detecting if it's in a VM.  (While there might be ways of tricking it so it doesn't know it's in a VM, the chances would be that they are using multiple methods of detecting that it's in a virtual machine...e.g. some don't report the clock speed as changing, so if it's constant then its more likely to be running in a VM).

 

7 hours ago, Sauron said:

That's so stupid. Students could always cheat, even in person, if they really wanted to.

It's about setting a proper deterrent (if all students think they could get away with it, the number of students cheating would go through the roof).  It's similar to when they put a cardboard cut-out of an officer with a radar gun, they do so to remind people of the speed limit and to have them slow down.

 

48 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

1. Under normal circumstances no. Under COVID circumstances however it's much harder as many of the measures you'd take to make that possibble require other people or to get people to go out. look at Linus doing WAN show from home, he had one of his kids stick their head in one time. Was cute to watch on a live-stream, but would be a huge no-no during an exam.

 

2. Using the restroom is absolutely not banned in the UK, i'm not sure it would even be legal to do so. A teacher escorts you there and back for reference. Also we had a fire drill during a few of my exams, (different times in my schooling so different exam sets). We just got extra time on the exam.

 

3. Also what about people that don't meet the hardware specs. I guarantee you kin the UK the school/college would not be allowed to just fail you on the exam on that one under normal circumstances. 

1. It flags potential issues, so if things like someone popped in/kid ran in while taking a test I bet you wouldn't get in trouble.  If you were in a crowded environment the entire time then yea, most likely you would be in trouble.

 

2. That's the issue though, if in a test environment a teacher escorts you then how would you propose to have a similar limitation here?  (And again, if you had to go to the restroom, and you went quickly my guess is they might ask questions and investigate but not fail you).  As for the fire alarm, well see point 1...they have the audio so they could tell an alarm went off (and it defaults back to point 1, you likely wouldn't get in trouble for it...although if you went outside for an extended period of time you might be in trouble in the sense that you don't have time to take the test).

 

3. See my comment from the beginning.  I am betting if you talked with an academic advisor/professor you could come up with a solution.  The blanket statements are often used to deter people from exploiting exceptions as a loophole.

 

 

 

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

if all students think they could get away with it, the number of students cheating would go through the roof

Nah, this isn't high school. You're not forced to take a university course. Most students care about learning and passing the exam "the right way".

[wanderingfool2]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Nah, this isn't high school. You're not forced to take a university course. Most students care about learning and passing the exam "the right way".

You're wrong, flat out.

https://www.plagiarism.org/article/plagiarism-facts-and-stats

17% admitted to cheating on a test...that is those who admitted to it.  As mentioned I've mentioned in another post in this thread, I've attended a school where 25%+ were caught cheating (in a single class).

 

This also brings to issue that there isn't enough punishment of undergrads that get caught cheating (in some cases it doesn't go on the record).

[Sauron]

4 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You're wrong, flat out.

https://www.plagiarism.org/article/plagiarism-facts-and-stats

17% admitted to cheating on a test...that is those who admitted to it.  As mentioned I've mentioned in another post in this thread, I've attended a school where 25%+ were caught cheating (in a single class).

> claims I'm wrong in saying that most university students don't want to cheat

> provides a study where less than a fifth were found to be cheaters (in at least one test which probably means the real number of regular offenders is even lower) and then provides anecdotal evidence that a fourth of students were found to cheat

 

You may want to look up the definition of "most".

6 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

This also brings to issue that there isn't enough punishment of undergrads that get caught cheating (in some cases it doesn't go on the record).

What record? If you cheat (I assume) you fail the exam, what more is there to record?

 

Again, if you want to cheat you can do it; if that causes you to pass without knowing anything then you'll just have cheated yourself. You spend years of your life (and in some places a lot of money) attending university and if you choose to waste the opportunity that's your problem. If you claim you know things you don't it's going to come out eventually. If it never comes up then you probably didn't need to know anyway.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

28 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You're wrong, flat out.

https://www.plagiarism.org/article/plagiarism-facts-and-stats

17% admitted to cheating on a test...that is those who admitted to it.  As mentioned I've mentioned in another post in this thread, I've attended a school where 25%+ were caught cheating (in a single class).

 

This also brings to issue that there isn't enough punishment of undergrads that get caught cheating (in some cases it doesn't go on the record).

Which school was this? UBC? I actually would be believe it if you said it was UBC... 

[wanderingfool2]

6 minutes ago, Sauron said:

> claims I'm wrong in saying that most university students don't want to cheat

> provides a study where less than a fifth were found to be cheaters (in at least one test which probably means the real number of regular offenders is even lower) and then provides anecdotal evidence that a fourth of students were found to cheat

 

You may want to look up the definition of "most".

Sure...let's do the honor system then.  My point is valid, 17% is quite a large number to -admit- to cheating, and is likely higher than that.  Context is the key, saying that "most" students are honest is flat out wrong in a rebuttal to a statement that cheating would skyrocket.  The easier it is to cheat the more temptation it will be to cheat (changing that B to an A, or C to a B).

 

13 minutes ago, Sauron said:

What record? If you cheat (I assume) you fail the exam, what more is there to record?

 

Again, if you want to cheat you can do it; if that causes you to pass without knowing anything then you'll just have cheated yourself. You spend years of your life (and in some places a lot of money) attending university and if you choose to waste the opportunity that's your problem. If you claim you know things you don't it's going to come out eventually. If it never comes up then you probably didn't need to know anyway.

Things are often graded on a curve, so cheating has an impact on all students.  Cheating at an university level course should have consequences of it getting put on the transcript of caught of academic fraud, or expulsion (depending on the severity)

[Sauron]

19 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

My point is valid, 17% is quite a large number to -admit- to cheating, and is likely higher than that. 

It may or may not be, what it definitely isn't is a counterpoint to what I said.

20 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Context is the key, saying that "most" students are honest is flat out wrong

Uhm... there's no context needed. "Most" means "more than 50%". According to your own source, 83% of students say they never cheated on a test.

21 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The easier it is to cheat the more temptation it will be to cheat (changing that B to an A, or C to a B).

Citation needed. Also changing a B to an A makes no real difference regarding what you can claim to know when you have your degree so even if that were the case I wouldn't see the issue - let people boost their ego if they want to.

23 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Things are often graded on a curve, so cheating has an impact on all students.

Curve grading is stupid, either you know the thing to a satisfying degree or you don't and that's all the grade should reflect. If anything curve grading is an incentive to cheat, much more so than letting your "guard" down.

25 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Cheating at an university level course should have consequences of it getting put on the transcript of caught of academic fraud, or expulsion (depending on the severity)

...but why? Who are you defrauding other than yourself?

[wanderingfool2]

45 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Which school was this? UBC? I actually would be believe it if you said it was UBC... 

Not going to name names, it was a school within British Columbia though.

 

18 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Uhm... there's no context needed. "Most" means "more than 50%". According to your own source, 83% of students say they never cheated on a test

To start off with, most actually means having the greatest amount (which in this case since it is binary is a 50%, but by no means does most mean "more than 50%".  You are also missing the point completely, you aren't wrong because you said most students are honest.  You are wrong in saying that "most students are honest" is not an argument for not having not setting a deterrent.  My original wording "It's about setting a proper deterrent (if all students think they could get away with it, the number of students cheating would go through the roof).".  17% admit to already cheating (that's almost 1 in 5).  43% admit to cheating on assignments (over 2 in 5).  Again, it doesn't matter if most students are honest, that doesn't mean the numbers won't spike and that there is already quite a large % of people cheating.

 

30 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Curve grading is stupid, either you know the thing to a satisfying degree or you don't and that's all the grade should reflect. If anything curve grading is an incentive to cheat, much more so than letting your "guard" down.

There were professors who would design the test to average around 50% (and curve).  The reason for this was to be able to single out the students who really knew their stuff (and would give recommendations to).

31 minutes ago, Sauron said:

.but why? Who are you defrauding other than yourself?

What about all the other students?  How many people that were on the bubble of getting a scholarship, but a cheater got it instead.  How many people didn't get accepted into their post-grad classes because someone who cheated got in instead.  There are a lot of reasons to flag someone who has committed academic fraud; including flagging to future employers of the character

[Sauron]

18 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You are wrong in saying that "most students are honest" is not an argument for not having not setting a deterrent.  My original wording "It's about setting a proper deterrent (if all students think they could get away with it, the number of students cheating would go through the roof).".  17% admit to already cheating (that's almost 1 in 5).  43% admit to cheating on assignments (over 2 in 5).  Again, it doesn't matter if most students are honest, that doesn't mean the numbers won't spike and that there is already quite a large % of people cheating.

You have observed that some people cheat regardless of deterrents. What mental gymnastics you used to infer from that that not having the deterrents would increase the number of people cheating is a mystery. People cheating anyway is an argument in my favor, because it shows that deterrents are ineffective and that despite that there's no evidence of a significant problem with people getting out of university without knowing anything.

22 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

What about all the other students?  How many people that were on the bubble of getting a scholarship, but a cheater got it instead.

That's a problem with the way scholarships are handed out. Plus you're assuming this (as in people missing out on a scholarship in favor of a cheater) is something that regularly happens. AND I don't see how expelling cheaters who get caught helps in any way. Punitive measures have been shown multiple times to be an ineffective deterrent to all sorts of crimes and rule breaking.

23 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

How many people didn't get accepted into their post-grad classes because someone who cheated got in instead. 

You tell me; do you have a number on this or are you just riding on pure speculation? Also, may I remind you, we currently HAVE "deterrents". All evidence of it not working undermines your argument.

27 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

There are a lot of reasons to flag someone who has committed academic fraud; including flagging to future employers of the character

Why should the employer know or care? Again, if the person can't do their job it's going to become apparent very quickly.

[CarlBar]

4 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

1. It flags potential issues, so if things like someone popped in/kid ran in while taking a test I bet you wouldn't get in trouble.  If you were in a crowded environment the entire time then yea, most likely you would be in trouble.

 

2. That's the issue though, if in a test environment a teacher escorts you then how would you propose to have a similar limitation here?  (And again, if you had to go to the restroom, and you went quickly my guess is they might ask questions and investigate but not fail you).  As for the fire alarm, well see point 1...they have the audio so they could tell an alarm went off (and it defaults back to point 1, you likely wouldn't get in trouble for it...although if you went outside for an extended period of time you might be in trouble in the sense that you don't have time to take the test).

 

3. See my comment from the beginning.  I am betting if you talked with an academic advisor/professor you could come up with a solution.  The blanket statements are often used to deter people from exploiting exceptions as a loophole.

 

From some of the thins being said further up it sounds like they are applying the rules rigidly though, thats the problem.

 

The harsh reality is that a lot of the rules that apply in a normal exam test environment cannot be reasonably made to apply, (without being easy to exploit), in the environment that exists now. Even in normal circumstances there would be enough edge cases, (Families or other co-habitating groups living in single room flats for example), that they'd still need to have actual sit in exams as an option. But that gets much worse in a lockdown where some of the more basic measures to deal with potential problems aren't available. 

[Beerzerker]

22 hours ago, Ernspiker76 said:

When she voiced her concerns to her professor the response she got was “It’s like any exam, you can’t leave the exam room.” And she was told to “get childcare”."

 

 

 

And if it were me the professor would have been told what he could "Get" - As in F'ed over it.
The amount of control schools, universities and so on are trying to get is invasive.

Can't even look away from the screen for even a moment - I mean WTF?

I'm glad I don't have to worry about all this.

[wanderingfool2]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

You have observed that some people cheat regardless of deterrents. What mental gymnastics you used to infer from that that not having the deterrents would increase the number of people cheating is a mystery. People cheating anyway is an argument in my favor, because it shows that deterrents are ineffective and that despite that there's no evidence of a significant problem with people getting out of university without knowing anything.

Some people who cheat will always cheat, but the easier it is made to cheat the more likely it is for people to do so.  Catching people cheating, and having no punishment means there isn't as much of an incentive for not cheating.  Again, the 25% of the class, aside for a long lecture and continued monitoring they got away with it.  Their grades in that class remained, and they weren't forced to retake the class.

 

If you want a more quantitative thing, look at the rates of cheating on assignments vs tests (where assignments are easier to cheat on).  It raised to 43%, and this is of those who admitted to it.  Or look at the whole admissions scandal...so don't claim that the "cheaters" aren't taking up a certain percentage of spots within university (and abusing the resources)

 

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

That's a problem with the way scholarships are handed out. Plus you're assuming this (as in people missing out on a scholarship in favor of a cheater) is something that regularly happens. AND I don't see how expelling cheaters who get caught helps in any way. Punitive measures have been shown multiple times to be an ineffective deterrent to all sorts of crimes and rule breaking.

It's a mark on an academic career, it would instantly disqualify them from scholarships and such.  To have no safeguards in place would just be foolish, as there will be cheaters and it will likely increase the rate of cheating/severity.

 

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

Why should the employer know or care? Again, if the person can't do their job it's going to become apparent very quickly.

Whether a person can do a task is greatly different than if they are fully adequate for the job.  Do you know the cost of picking an wrong employee during hire?  It's a ton, even if you discover early on they oversold their abilities.  It also speaks to someone's character that is willing to cheat.

[coasterghost]

On 9/16/2020 at 11:20 PM, DeScruff said:

If they are required... Troll the frig outa them - get the cheapest shittiest mic or webcamera.

For those in the US; FiveBelow did sell not sure if they still do, webcams that are 640x480.  I reckon they might be better than the wish.com ones so look for the cheapest lol

[Ernspiker76]

15 hours ago, coasterghost said:

For those in the US; FiveBelow did sell not sure if they still do, webcams that are 640x480.  I reckon they might be better than the wish.com ones so look for the cheapest lol

Proctortrack says in their required specs that your Webcam needs to be at least 800x600

https://www.proctortrack.com/tech-requirements/

[HarryNyquist]

I'm glad I got out of school before this became commonplace. Disgusting invasion of privacy.

[NeuesTestament]

At my university they just switched the exams to "open book" exams meaning you could use whatever help you wanted (obviously plagiarism still wasn't allowed). Just like others in here already said, I don't think you can control whether people at home cheat anyways and the invasion of privacy just isn't worth it.

[TetraSky]

On 9/17/2020 at 9:55 AM, Doobeedoo said:

Also, what kind od exam lasts 3h what.. 

Language exams usually give us three hours, especially the ones where you need to write a super long text where the subject at hand is not given in advance.

Whether or not you need the entire three hours, that's another story.

 

Otherwise, 90 minutes to two hours is is probably the standard as far as other type of exams go.

[Zodiark1593]

21 hours ago, lexusgamer05 said:

Seeing all you guys complain about schools installing spyware onto your devices just makes me grateful that all my school asks for is a Windows installation and MS Office.

I fought tooth and nail to sidestep the Microsoft Office requirement (at the time, I didn’t yet have a job during that recession, so the $90 was quite a big deal when I had books, online access codes and tuition to contend with). Teachers weren’t especially pleased that they were unable to open OpenOffice’s documents or the formatting was destroyed, so I resorted to sending in .PDFs instead as everyone and their dog thankfully had Adobe Reader.  
 

Buying an all new system to take exams was an obvious non-starter for me at the time, let alone that I’d never install such a piece of software on any of my systems with the current me. I’d probably take the F or Withdrawal over willingly giving over access to my system, if the professor has the audacity to declare the requirement after courses began. 

[Doobeedoo]

3 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Language exams usually give us three hours, especially the ones where you need to write a super long text where the subject at hand is not given in advance.

Whether or not you need the entire three hours, that's another story.

 

Otherwise, 90 minutes to two hours is is probably the standard as far as other type of exams go.

Interesting, it was 90min when I did those, really nothing was longer, general ones were 45min. 

[TetraSky]

1 hour ago, Doobeedoo said:

Interesting, it was 90min when I did those, really nothing was longer, general ones were 45min. 

The only exams that were 45 minutes for me, were the old school exams where it's basically "choose between A, B, C, D" with maybe two to five questions where you had to write more than 1 word. Those are essentially primary school level exams. Haven't had one of those in AGES. I miss them... So easy.

 

But for our language exams here, you don't know the subject of the exam in advance, you literally can't prepare for it.

You turn the page and you find out your subject is some random ass crap like "a love in autumn that ended like a leaf in the wind" (or some other ridiculous crap like that)... the type that you need to write a story with the Intro, Body and Conclusion with a minimum number of word (worse yet, a random poem subject with a minimum number of words... and you HAVE to rhymes it up).

Ain't possible. Since every single exam past the second year of high school, demanded at least 400 words... and it goes up with each passing year. In my first semester of college, it was 750 words. 

No matter how fast you write, it's impossible to do that in just 90 minutes. The average COPYING writing speed is 13 words per minute by hand. That's 47 minutes, NON-STOP for 600 words. This is assuming you know exactly what you need to write.

 

If you're some sort of language genius, it might be possible to come up with a random story based on a random subject when put on the spot... But I sure as hell can't. I still need to make a plan, do some form of draft... Ain't no way I can do that in just 90 minutes. Heck, I can't even do a proper draft in 3 hours, I run out of time and I just have the draft and no clean copy.... (My fast writing speed is like 1 page in 15 minutes, but that's unreadable by anyone other than me. My "clean" writing speed... Is closer to 1 page every 30~40 minutes. 1 page is on average about 250~300 words for me.)

 

Now if it's done on PC... That's another story... But you need a special condition where I live to be allowed to use a computer for language exams (Except now with Covid, I guess...).

[Doobeedoo]

1 hour ago, TetraSky said:

The only exams that were 45 minutes for me, were the old school exams where it's basically "choose between A, B, C, D" with maybe two to five questions where you had to write more than 1 word. Those are essentially primary school level exams. Haven't had one of those in AGES. I miss them... So easy.

 

But for our language exams here, you don't know the subject of the exam in advance, you literally can't prepare for it.

You turn the page and you find out your subject is some random ass crap like "a love in autumn that ended like a leaf in the wind" (or some other ridiculous crap like that)... the type that you need to write a story with the Intro, Body and Conclusion with a minimum number of word (worse yet, a random poem subject with a minimum number of words... and you HAVE to rhymes it up).

Ain't possible. Since every single exam past the second year of high school, demanded at least 400 words... and it goes up with each passing year. In my first semester of college, it was 750 words. 

No matter how fast you write, it's impossible to do that in just 90 minutes. The average COPYING writing speed is 13 words per minute by hand. That's 47 minutes, NON-STOP for 600 words. This is assuming you know exactly what you need to write.

 

If you're some sort of language genius, it might be possible to come up with a random story based on a random subject when put on the spot... But I sure as hell can't. I still need to make a plan, do some form of draft... Ain't no way I can do that in just 90 minutes. Heck, I can't even do a proper draft in 3 hours, I run out of time and I just have the draft and no clean copy.... (My fast writing speed is like 1 page in 15 minutes, but that's unreadable by anyone other than me. My "clean" writing speed... Is closer to 1 page every 30~40 minutes. 1 page is on average about 250~300 words for me.)

 

Now if it's done on PC... That's another story... But you need a special condition where I live to be allowed to use a computer for language exams (Except now with Covid, I guess...).

Hmm I guess depends from person to person too for sure. Yeah I knew you were talking about the subject you don't know in advance. Those essay like stuff.  Also that number of words too. Then again, I for the most part refused to do draft then re-write stuff ugh. I'd try to form most of it in my head and then maybe some part on side, then just burst write everything down haha. For some tests I didn't do anything for like half an hour, thinking, then just writing it up without stop. Though I have to admit I write very fast, much faster than 13 words per minute by hand xD. Yet it's funny some tests I'd do among last some, actually first. 

Yeah on PC it would be totally different. 

[Zodiark1593]

14 minutes ago, lexusgamer05 said:

Did you have to pay for that? Nowadays, my school has a 365 subscription and just gives all students access to that

It gets better, in an ironic sort of way. Via the MSDNA program when you take courses in Computer Science, I was able to get ahold of Windows 7 professional completely free of charge. No such program nor even discount existed for Microsoft Office, the software that was borderline necessary to do many assignments. You were paying the full ~$90 for the privilege. 365 wasn’t a thing by that point (2008-2009)
 

At the time, I was also buying whatever I can used, as well as those shit online access codes required to actually do the homework, forcing me to buy a few books brand new to get the code. Throwing in the extra Benjamin for some software that I can probably work my way around was entirely out of the question, especially since I didn’t yet have a job. 

[schwellmo92]

Meh this isn’t a big deal. I’ve had to do this numerous times for Microsoft exams.