Online exam software sparks global student revolt

Avi Asher-Schapiro When US law student Areeb Khan tried to sign into the online portal to take his practice bar exam, he was met with a strange message: “Due to poor lighting we are unable to identify your face.” Additional lighting did not solve the issue. The 27-year-old even tried to sign in from the brightest room in his New York apartment — the bathroom. Khan began to suspect that it was his dark skin tone that rattled Examplify, a test proctoring platform adopted by New York state’s law exams board during the COVID-19 pandemic. It took days of back and forth with customer service before he could sign in. “There are so many systematic barriers preventing people like me from obtaining these degrees — and this is just another example of that,” he said. As COVID-19 restrictions force students to take remote exams, universities around the world are relying on proctoring software like Examplify. But many students are wary of the technology, including mass data collection and bias in facial recognition. “Students are already under tremendous pressure because of the global pandemic,” said Hye Jung Han, a researcher at advocacy group Human Rights Watch who specialises in technology and education. “And now we have this invasive and unfair surveillance pushing the envelope, invading their private lives.” Industry leaders maintain their platforms are a critical part of the infrastructure that allows students to continue learning. “We believe that many lives have been positively impacted by being able to continue their education and careers,” said Nici Sandberg, spokeswoman for ExamSoft, which makes the Examplify platform. “ExamSoft maintains a non-biased identification and exam delivery process to ensure that individuals of color are not disproportionately affected.” More than 90 per cent of countries have instituted some form of remote learning since the start of the pandemic, according to a report in August by Unicef. This, in turn, has created a booming business for companies dealing in educational technology — or edtech — including firms that specialise in ensuring remote exams are free from cheating. One firm, Proctorio, reported that it was proctoring more than five times the number of exams this year, compared to last year. The remote proctoring industry offers a range of services, from basic video links that allow another human to observe students as they take exams to algorithmic tools that use artificial intelligence (AI) to detect cheating. But asking students to install software to monitor them during a test raises a host of fairness issues, experts say. “There’s a big gulf between what this technology promises, and what it actually does on the ground,” said Audrey Watters, a researcher on the edtech industry who runs the website Hack Education. “(They) assume everyone looks the same, takes tests the same way, and responds to stressful situations in the same way.” — Thomson Reuters Foundation