Many online students value the privacy of learning from home. But, a new bill may take away the freedom to learn in your pajamas. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, a section of the Higher Education Act renewal bill requires that online schools prove the student doing the work is the enrolled student.
They explain:
Will new law will promote the credibility of online learning? Or, will it alienate potential students by invading their privacy? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
See Also: Online College Test Taking Requirements
They explain:
"Tucked away in a 1,200-page bill now in Congress is a small paragraph that could lead distance-education institutions to require spy cameras in their students' homes.If the bill passes, as is expected, online students will have to prove their identity through methods such as video cameras, proctored exams, keystroke recorders, or finger print readers.
It sounds Orwellian, but the paragraph — part of legislation renewing the Higher Education Act — is all but assured of becoming law by the fall. No one in Congress objects to it.
The paragraph is actually about clamping down on cheating."
Will new law will promote the credibility of online learning? Or, will it alienate potential students by invading their privacy? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
See Also: Online College Test Taking Requirements
Comments
While I can understand the spirit of the suggested legislation, I think that such a requirement for online students will ultimately discourage vast numbers of potential students who will not understand the rationale. My experience with many online students who do not have the best study habits, educational foundation or time management, who nevertheless struggle educationally with no outside or inappropriate help. Requiring electronic monitoring will not produce the desired results, but will be viewed simply as another invasion of privacy. This will be so perceived because there will be concern about what other personal activity may be recorded by such monitoring devices that will increase the perception of privacy invasion. A good example are the various attempts to discourage retail theft by installing visual monitoring devices in retail store restrooms, which in many cases resulted in misuse of such devices and extended invasions of personal privacy. Rather than benefiting online instruction, such a bill will frighten potential students and severely reduce educational access.
It does sound Orwellian, true. However, as a former faculty member at several U.S. institutions of higher learning, I can assure you that cheating, term paper buying, plagiarizing, and other unethical tactics are on the increase. I also include grade inflation, and “retain every warm body” practices on the part of administrations that have forgotten the true meaning of higher education but not the cash value of the bottom line.
Distance Learning provides even greater opportunities for cheaters and academic parasites, such as paying “tutors” to take their online tests. I cannot blame Distance Learning institutions for adopting more stringent I.D. verifications. No Distance Learning program would wish to see increasingly large numbers of “graduate duds” discrediting its standards and reputation. There are plenty of diploma-waving college graduate idiots out there proving my point!
Cheaters will find a way around this easily enough. This is driven by the U.S. Department of Education’s obsession with “outcomes.” But the fact is, hiring someone else to do one’s coursework is more easily done by a brick and mortar student than by an online student. All the classroom student has to do is avoid classroom participation. An online student would have to hire someone to do every bit of their coursework–all communication is done in writing, and there is just no way to fake that. I’ll just quote from a blog written by someone who actually understands online education: “You’ve either read the material and done the work, or you haven’t. This is especially evident due to the necessity of written communication,” says O’Brien. “You can’t roll the dice and hope you’re not called on in class, and you can’t tank an assignment and figure that you’ll make it up in class participation.”
And as for exams–quality online learning does not rely on exams; every test is, by definition, and open-book exam. Besides, I went to school before online education even existed, and I saw paid ringers taking final exams. Whether my fellow students were also buying their term papers, I couldn’t say. But there was, and is, nothing to stop this form of classroom based cheating. This proposed law is a bizarre–and indeed Orwellian–non-solution to a non-existant problem.
This initiative is just more evidence that the Secretary of Education hasn’t got a clue about online education and how it works.
It’s interesting that everyone is focusing on these technologies in the negative sense. A great part of the reason that they exist is to make it more convenient for students taking a test to do so in their own homes rather than traveling to a testing center or searching for a proctor to watch them. Distance Ed is about convenience and from a marketing perspective, why wouldn’t an institution make this a benefit for their students? Seems like the “green” thing to do. Besides, we are “watched” in parking lots, in stores and on our roads. There is hardly anything Orwellian about it–we do it for safety, and for security all the time. Once the test is complete, the camera is turned off—I really don’t see much of a difference between someone “watching” a tester in a room or a person “watching” remotely.
Sorry, but I just have to chime in again …
Online education is about convenience and is coincidentally “greeen.” Surveillance is about control and by no coincidence the intrusive, even oppressive thing to do. The two should not be confused nor conflated with each other.
Societies and institutions that seek to monitor and control their members have never had any trouble vouchafing an excuse. Giving surveillance the “green” banner is completely unnecessary.
I understand what they are wanting to do, but quite honestly the day I am required to have an online camera watching me take a course in my home is the day I dont take the course. I am ok with proctored exams to keep things honest, though. The camera is a violation of my privacy.
Hi, I am an online student. And we have proctored exams that are not open book, so this idea of cheating is not possible. You have to show your ID to the proctor they have to write the numbers down, to match what is on the schools record. Then the proctor has to initial the envelope once sealed with the exam inside to show that they were the last ones to see that envelope before mailing.
There is no way to cheat, and as another posting stated. You have to write everything, so I do not see how people can cheat. I never have and never will. I do not like the idea of video cameras for everytime you post your discussions, homework or tests, because I have time at work that I am allowed to do homework and studying. I do not have one computer where I do my work. Some do their work at a library (I sure do). I do not limit myself to my home or my own computer(s). So to keep track of me would be difficult, and I always have witnesses as to what I am doing and if I am using a book or not. This new bill is quite a waste of time. It does not do anything for the problems, more colleges have to have proctored exams and quizzes. This will maintain the integrity and insure students are outside of their homes working on school work.
I am currently attending classes online. I do not like the idea of a camera. However, I believe that some other type of proof, such as the fingerprinting would benefit the students in the long run. There is still a stigma attached to online learning. Having proof that there was no cheating, and that the student is the one doing the work would add credibility to online learning thereby adding credibility to the degrees that we online students will be obtaining.