Colleges and universities are increasingly using digital tools to prevent cheating during online exams, since so many people are taking class from home or their dorm rooms in the era of COVID-19.
Needless to say, there are pain points.
The programs — angry commenters namechecked software including Pearson VUE and Honorlock — track eye movements and even anxious sobbing during hard tests, one commenter said underneath a TikTok about the controversial trackers. University of Kentucky professor Josef Fruehwald said in his video that he wouldn’t trust professors who use tracking software, prompting 2.3 million views and dozens of comments from stressed out students.
“One of my French exams got flagged for cheating because I was crying for the whole thing and my French prof had to watch 45 min of me quietly sobbing,” one user replied.
“Since COVID, LSAT uses a proctoring system,” another said. “I was yelled at for having a framed quote from my grandmother on the wall.”
No less harrowing, one student said a proctor asked them to change into “something more conservative” during the exam, in the student’s own home.
Fruehwald got so many responses he made a Twitter thread about it — whereupon tweeps started sharing even more allegations.
“My husband has two classes left for his BFA and one of them is a math class that requires an assessment test before enrolling,” wrote one person. “He should have graduated two years ago but he couldn’t take the friggin math class because THE SOUND OF HIS LAPTOP’S FAN SET OFF THE PROCTOR SOFTWARE.”
Eye tracking software isn’t exactly knocking out out of the park in the public opinion lately. One startup is forcing people to watch ads with their eyelids all the way open, and another is offering crypto in exchange for eyeball time.
The pandemic has changed a lot about the way society runs, and education seems to be a particularly challenged sector. As teachers quit jobs and students say they’re silently sobbing into eye tracking programs on a computer screen, it’s not hard to see why.
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