University students and staff across the country are concerned about increased surveillance on examinations, saying they can be overly-sensitive and cause undue stress during tests.
The alarm comes as Canadian universities try to stamp out growing rates of academic misconduct since the pandemic pushed classrooms online. Growing accessibility to artificial intelligence has provided new ways to cheat on tests.
The University of Regina is in the midst of investigating about 50 alleged academic misconduct cases in its faculty of nursing.
Cheryl Pollard, the dean of nursing, said the cases stem from online final exams taken in December, and only make up about one per cent of the total final exams taken last semester.
The school uses a proctoring software to monitor and prevent cheating. The software video and audio records the students while they take the test and flags any suspicious behaviour, including if a student looks away from the screen, gets up from their seat or talks to someone else in the room.
“Then those are the videos that we will further investigate,” Pollard said.
The faculty is working to complete the final few investigations, but Pollard said most of the cases found grounds for academic misconduct. Those students will have to retake the course.
CTV News spoke to a handful of nursing students who were cleared of any misconduct and they said the investigations impacted their class schedules, scholarships and student loan eligibility.
Each of the 50 students received a letter at the start of the month informing them that their final exam was under review, and that they would be removed from clinical placements that required that class as a prerequisite.
“I felt powerless. I didn’t know what my options were,” said second-year student Tyvan Yee.
“This is a week before classes started. I had prepped — I bought my textbooks. I had planned out my schedule. I planned out my work schedule, and all of a sudden, that all went out the door.”
Yee’s case was eventually dismissed and he was put back into his clinical placement. He believes he was prematurely taken out of the course, and would have liked the investigation to conclude before it impacted his class schedule.
The dean said it is typically standard practice to allow students to continue on with their studies while under investigation. However, the faculty made an exception due to the nature of the clinical placement.
“It was really about finding a balance between patient safety and our students’ ability to move forward,” Pollard said, adding that all affected students will be back on track with their schedules by the summer semester at the very latest.
The University of Regina said academic misconduct investigations are routine across all faculties, and several of the faculties are noticing an increase in cheating compared to previous years.
New ways to cheat
“Reports of academic integrity violations have increased across the higher education sector over the past five years. There are many factors to consider that might explain this, but a high-level explanation is that there are more types of scholastic offences being attempted and more tools in place to detect them,” said a spokesperson for Western University.
The post-secondary institution saw about 150 more academic offences in the first year of the pandemic than it did the previous year. Those numbers are dropping, but still well above pre-pandemic levels.
The university created an academic integrity task force to help solve the issues.
“We’ve expanded our resources on academic integrity for instructors and students, including a training module for graduate students. We’re also working with instructors to include course-specific statements on academic integrity on course outlines,” the spokesperson said.
Experts critical of proctoring software
Proctoring software is used across Canadian universities to combat online cheating. But some experts warn the programs create unnecessary stress for students.
“It is pretty normal and human for your eyes to dart away from the screen, even if you’re legitimately thinking about something. Some proctoring tools still flag those kinds of behaviours,” said Bonnie Stewart, an associate professor of online pedagogy and workplace learning at the University of Windsor.
“Those issues are not issues that students should have to contend with,” she said.
The software is often accurate in flagging different behaviours, Stewart said, but flagged behaviours do not always equate to academic offences.
“I think the whole conversation about academic misconduct right now is one that we really need to rethink,” Stewart said.
While proctoring programs are convenient for universities, Stewart said there are other tools available that do not involve the surveillance of students.
“Sometimes the tendency is to rely on these tools because they’re there. I think that’s a mistake,” she said. “Where possible, students should absolutely be pushing back against having their educational experience outsourced to tools that do not serve them.”
Pollard acknowledged the technology is not perfect. She said the nursing faculty is moving back to more in-person classes, but even then that does not guarantee cheating will not take place.
She said the faculty is working on improving the proctoring system to make it less discriminatory and to speed up any investigations that may arise.
