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.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
