Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

Introduction

In this section, we will examine some of the reasons why there has been an emergence of proctoring technologies. We discover and question whether these technologies are still viewed as an emergency response for online assessment and finally, we will discuss the implications that this may have for the future of digital assessment.

Podcast (40 mins)

Once you have listened to the podcast, please answer the following questions

1. Do you agree with the idea that the direction of travel is irreversible for remotely proctored assessment as the norm?
2. What questions does this raise for the future of education?

You can take the survey here

What impact could this have for our digital education futures?

One of the key discussions around these technologies is that they have opened up the boundaries between our personal and public spaces. New interactions between institution, teacher and student have emerged as a result of this technology adoption, whether this was offered via (1) live, (2) record and review, (3) artificial intelligence (AI), or (4) web-conferencing (Sando et al., 2021, p.1).

In the wake of the adoption of these technologies,  little research has been undertaken on the impacts of the use and storing of users’ biometric data and personal IDs. Data exchanges between institutions are being readily shared externally with other systems. The visibility of end to end encryption is neither transparent nor accessible, yet little is changing in informing new and updated privacy policies to keep up to date with the new mechanisms and software that house such data.

Please read this article by Caines & Silverman (2021) who explore the problematic nature of such relationships and their recommendations for how institutions might exert more control over fourth-party integrations with surveillance technology.

In particular pay attention to Table 2. Harm index of remote proctoring systems. This is a useful tool to look at the potential impacts to staff, students and wider society.

Proctoring technologies like many ‘techno-solutionism’ (Johnston, 2018) offerings introduced during the pandemic have ‘focused primarily on the engineering of new innovations to address problems’ (Selwyn, 2021, p.497)

Interestingly Neil Selwyn contemplates the impact of edTech’s reach into the sector and what that might mean for education going forward. Please view this short video (12mins)

‘The edTech rush in the wake of Covid-19’ by Neil Selwyn (Youtube) is licenced by youtube standard licence.

Closing Statement

If we take some time to review the resources and activities provided there is a warning that in the post-pandemic era that if these technologies become a permanent defacto solution to digital assessments practices, it does so without a critical understanding of its broader effect within education establishments. As (Steedman et al., 2020) describe, this can lead to ‘complex ecologies of trust’, which can lead to ‘feelings of trust or distrust in data practices’ (Steedman et al., 2020, p.823).

We will discuss this in further detail in the next section data practice & trust.

Discussion

Within the blog comments please post your experiences with proctoring technologies and your initial thoughts on whether you think they are being introduced in your institution.

This concludes this first section but if you are interested in researching this topic further then please refer to the following secondary readings.

Doyle, S 2021. Why Don’t You Trust Us?’, The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, Issue. 20, https://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/why-dont-you-trust-us/

Hébert, Cristyne. (2021). Online Remote Proctoring Software in the Neoliberal Institution: Measurement, Accountability, and Testing Culture. in education. https://journals.uregina.ca/ineducation/article/view/507

References

Assessment and COVID-19 – Episode 5, The Irreversible Direction of Travel. Insights from the e-Assessment Association Community. e-Assessment Association Podcast By e-Assessment Association (June 16, 2020)

Selwyn, N. (2021) ‘Ed-Tech Within Limits: Anticipating educational technology in times of environmental crisis’, E-Learning and Digital Media, 18(5), pp. 496–510. doi:10.1177/20427530211022951.

Neil Selwyn. (2020). COVID-19 and the edTech rush. [Online Video]. 15 June 2020. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOITMPTRX8w. [Accessed: 22 March 2022].

Digital Futures for Education by s1064867 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.