If you want to observe the unfolding impact of an institution ignoring the impact of policy decisions on students, watch the situation at Rutgers University. If you want to see the power of a single student saying “enough is enough”, go thank Betsy Chao and sign her petition. The current situation is that students are protesting the Rutgers usage of ProctorTrack software – which costs students $32 in additional fees, accessing their personal webcams, automatically tracks face and knuckle video as well as watching browser activity – in online courses. Students seem to be outraged at the lack of concern over student privacy and additional fees.
Prior to 2015, Rutgers already provided services for online courses to comply with federal regulations to monitor student identity. The rationale cited [emphasis added]:
The 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) requires institutions with distance education programs to have security mechanisms in place that ensure that the student enrolled in a particular course is in fact the same individual who also participates in course activities, is graded for the course, and receives the academic credit. According to the Department of Education, accrediting agencies must require distance education providers to authenticate students’ identities through secure (Learning Management System) log-ins and passwords, proctored exams, as well as “new identification technologies and practices as they become widely accepted.”
This academic term, Rutgers added a new option – ProctorTrack: (more…)