Guiding principles
Remote proctoring (including live Zoom invigilation) of online assessments is not permitted at Langara College. There are a number of reasons why the College has taken this position.
Equity
Remote proctoring systems must be fair to all test-takers. A common feature of remote proctoring tools is that they provide some form of virtual inspection of the student’s environment during test-taking. This could potentially introduce bias to the process. Students may be in crowded homes, or may not have access to good bandwidth, resulting in distorted video.
Remote proctoring systems more frequently fail to detect the faces of students with more marginalized gender or ethnic identities, or certain expressions of neuroatypical behaviours (Racial, skin tone, and sex disparities in automated proctoring software).
Requirements for hardware and high-performance internet connectivity may preclude some students from utilizing these systems.
Any or all of these factors can produce inequitable outcomes to the disproportionate detriment of already marginalized learners.
Back to top of pageAccessibility
Proctoring software may interfere with assistive technology students’ need to operate their computer. Consider:
- Keystroke logging/monitoring software often flags the additional keystrokes and inputs needed to operate assistive technology
- Proctoring tools may limit other software from operating at the same time: screen readers, speech to text dictation tools, text to speech reader tools, magnifying software, and other necessary accessibility tools could be prevented from operating
Remote proctoring software is trained to “identify and flag atypical movement, behavior, and communication; disabled people are by definition going to move, behave, and communicate in atypical ways” (How Automated Test Proctoring Software Discriminates Against Disabled Students – Center for Democracy and Technology). That means proctoring software often mistakenly flags student behaviours such as:
- Tics due to Tourette’s
- Involuntary movement from cerebral palsy or other neuromuscular disabilities
- Autistic “stimming”
- ADHD “fidgeting”
- Blind, low-vision, or autistic students who have atypical eye movement
- Students who read aloud or move their mouth as they read (Against Proctoring Software – The Open Learning & Teaching Collaborative)
The U of Illinois notes that remote proctoring software even mistakenly flagged glare from eyeglasses (U of Illinois says goodbye to Proctorio).
Additionally, proctoring software has been shown to increase test anxiety which results in lower test scores (21stCentury Assessment: Online Proctoring, Test Anxiety, and Student Performance).
When a student with disabilities writes their exams in Accessibility Services, staff need additional time to install and understand proctoring software. Accessibility Services does not have the time to add another layer to the exam process. Demand for accommodations is increasing and more unnecessary layers will stress an already taxed system further. Students with disabilities face significant adversity in test writing and additional barriers like proctoring software make the process even more difficult.
Back to top of pagePrivacy
Data collected by remote proctoring technologies, especially sensitive data such as video and audio recordings, are regularly collected by most proctoring software and are most often kept on servers outside of Canada, often without student knowledge or consent (Online Test Proctoring Software and Social Control: Is the Legal Framework for Personal Information and AI Protective Enough in Canada?, Online exam proctoring software during the pandemic: The quest to minimize student privacy risks).
Back to top of pageSecurity
Breaches to security are common and the quality and the consistency of the security with remote proctoring services is opaque.
Back to top of pageEfficacy
The biases common in remote proctoring software directly negatively impact their efficacy. If a given software cannot correctly identify a student due to bias, it cannot be used to verify whether a student is present.
Back to top of pageOther Methods for Improving Academic Integrity
The Academic Integrity Advisory Committee has put together a number of academic integrity resources and tools for instructors. These include syllabus statements, checklists or pledges, and methods of constructing Brightspace quizzes.
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