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from the 1984-was-not-a-"how-to"-manual dept.
When Syracuse University freshmen walk into professor Jeff Rubin's Introduction to Information Technologies class, seven small Bluetooth beacons hidden around the Grant Auditorium lecture hall connect with an app on their smartphones and boost their "attendance points." And when they skip class? The SpotterEDU app sees that, too, logging their absence into a campus database that tracks them over time and can sink their grade. It also alerts Rubin, who later contacts students to ask where they've been. His 340-person lecture has never been so full.
"They want those points," he said. "They know I'm watching and acting on it. So, behaviorally, they change."
Short-range phone sensors and campuswide Wi-Fi networks are empowering colleges across the United States to track hundreds of thousands of students more precisely than ever before. Dozens of schools now use such technology to monitor students' academic performance, analyse their conduct or assess their mental health.
But some professors and education advocates argue that the systems represent a new low in intrusive technology, breaching students' privacy on a massive scale. The tracking systems, they worry, will infantilise students in the very place where they're expected to grow into adults, further training them to see surveillance as a normal part of living, whether they like it or not.
In response we have:
How to (Hypothetically) Hack Your School's Surveillance System:
This week, hacktivist and security engineer Lance R. Vick tweeted an enticing proposition along with a gut-punch headline: "Colleges are turning students' phones into surveillance machines, tracking the locations of hundreds of thousands," read the Washington Post link.
Vick countered with an offer to students:
If you are at one of these schools asking you to install apps on your phone to track you, hit me up for some totally hypothetical academic ideas on how one might dismantle such a system.
We're always up for hacker class, so Vick supplied Gizmodo with a few theories for inquiring minds.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Sunday December 29 2019, @05:59PM (4 children)
I went to two different ABET-accredited engineering schools. There was never any attendance taken. You want me to believe that somehow, students skipping lectures has suddenly become much more prevalent than it was a couple decades ago?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @10:18PM (3 children)
You assume they're not taking attendance. The profs have a much better understanding of who is and isn't attending class than you realize. In those massive classes they have early on, you're probably right, but in typical classes the prof knows which students are attending.
And if it ever gets to the point where a significant number of students are paying without attending, there will likely be changes made. Students who do well without showing up are abnormal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @10:32PM (2 children)
Abnormal though they might be, they should have the option of not attending class if they do not need to. And, if someone isn't responsible enough to know whether or not they need to attend class, then they shouldn't receive a degree in the first place; no big loss. The notion that we need to hand out as many degrees is possible is counterproductive and antithetical to education.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 29 2019, @11:42PM (1 child)
I don't disagree about that, but if students are regularly ditching classes and passing, that's a sign that something is wrong. Personally, I work at a college and we collect as much data as we can so that we have a basis for deciding what support to provide students with.
Personally, I think that simply taking attendance in class and reaching out to students that aren't showing up is sufficient. Using their phones to spy on them is both lazy and unnecessary. It seems to me that there ought to be a less invasive way of correlating attendance to success rates than spying on students that may or may not be able to afford a phone in the first place.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:00AM
>if students are regularly ditching classes and passing, that's a sign that something is wrong.
It's extremely common for college professors to be lousy teachers. It's usually not hard to skip class and focus on studying the textbook, studying with classmates, and getting help from TAs and still pass.