On November 10, a United States law student known as Areeb Khan attempted to login into the school's online portal to be able to take his own practice bar exam. Shockingly enough, he was met with a message saying that because of poor lighting "we are unable to identify" the student's face.
Are Online Exam Software safe?
The additional lighting, however, was not able to solve the issue. The 27 year old law school student then proceeded to the bathroom in order to take the practice bar exam. Khan then started suspecting that it was actually his own dark skin tone that startled Examplify, the used proctoring platform that was adopted by the official New York state's own law exams board ever since the COVID-19 pandemic started.
It then took quite a couple of days in order to get back and forth with their customer service before certain people could eventually sign in. Areeb Khan then stated to Thomson Reuters Foundation that there were a number of systematic barriers that were preventing people from being able to obtain their degrees, the incident was stated to be an example of that.
What are the problems with Examplify?
Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, students are now forced to take their exams remotely. Most universities all around the world have also started to rely on Examplify, the proctoring software. According to Trust, many students are stated to be wary of the known technology. This includes the mass data collection as well as the bias in the said facial recognition.
According to Hye Jung Han, a particular researcher at the advocacy group called Human Rights Watch who a lot of students specialize in education and technology, stated that most students are actually already under great pressure due to the whole global pandemic. The statement continued saying students now have the recent "invasive" as well as "unfair" surveillance that are pushing the envelope all invading their own private lives.
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How is Examplify dealing with these problems?
According to ExamSoft spokeswoman Nici Sandberg, which makes the Examplify platform, it was stated that that they believe that a lot of lives have actually been impacted through their software being able to continue their own careers and education. She then stated that ExamSoft still maintains a very fair non-biased identification and its complete exam delivery process in order to ensure that certain individuals of color will not be disproportionately affected.
Nici Sandberg then stated that they have solved Khan's concerns within only a matter of minutes and that he was then able to complete his own exam. According to a report by UNICEF in August, over 90% of countries all around the world have all instituted some particular form of remote learning ever since the pandemic started.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian Buenconsejo
