Respondus Is the Perfect Reflection of In-Person Education一and That’s Exactly Why It’s So Terrible

Online proctoring services and their myriad of faults offer a window into who universities see as expendable.

The education industry has developed into its own ecosystem. With SAT classes, prep books and textbooks, flashcards, homework websites, apps of all shapes and kinds, companies seem to be engaged in a constant battle to out-compete one another in attempting to exploit the needs of children and young adults as efficiently as possible.

This hasn’t slowed down during the pandemic, either; if anything, a deadly pandemic forcing students and teachers into homes has only created new space for companies to fester. Zoom, of course, is one of the most obvious examples of this; although it was created pre-pandemic and is not solely used in education, it owes quite a bit of its stock increase over the past year to it being the de-facto leading app for thousands of online classes across the world.

The pandemic has also created the circumstances for another type of educational service to thrive: online test proctoring.

Companies like Respondus, ProctorU, and Proctorio have marketed themselves as a way to offer secure exams to students at home. Like Zoom, most of these companies were founded years before the pandemic; online classes have been increasing in prevalence for a while. But due to the pandemic increasing the demand for at-home testing they have skyrocketed in popularity.

Unlike Zoom, you’re unlikely to have any experience with these test proctoring systems outside of an educational environment. Hell, even if you’re in school or have taken an online class, you still may not have encountered one. Plenty of teachers have chosen to give open-book and open-note exams instead, or have just outright given up on any form of testing. Still, these services are in use; a 2020 poll from Educause showed that about 54% of the institutions polled were currently using some online proctoring service while 23% were considering or planning to use one. Of these polled institutions, Respondus was the most used product, being employed in 65% of the polled institutions.¹ Respondus self-reports its Lockdown Browser service as being used by over 1,500 institutions.² Proctorio’s Mike Olsen reported that his business grew “900%” as the pandemic started.³

Although each service has generally the same goal, they all have a few bells and whistles to differentiate themselves.

Students typically load some sort of plugin or software which brings them to a lockdown browser. This prevents students from using other apps, including their regular internet browser. Students may then have to turn on their webcam一this is technically an option on the end of the person designing the test, but realistically is the crux of the service during the pandemic (why bother locking your students on one device if they can simply look up what they need on another one without being monitored?). If a webcam is required, students typically need to do a scan of their desks and surroundings and show some form of ID. Depending on the instructor, a student may have to continually show the camera their surroundings via, for example, a mirror.

Students are recorded by their webcam as they take the exam. Depending on the service being used (and, in the case of ProctorU, the tier purchased) “suspicious behavior” of students may be detected in a variety of ways. Respondus specifically relies on automation, like many other proctoring apps. It goes through the recording and automatically flags things it deems suspect; this involves tracking eye and facial movement, keystrokes and mouse movements, frame data and who is in the camera’s eye at what time, etc. Respondus is particularly proud of how sophisticated its automatic flagging system is, referring to itself as the “most advanced computer vision and analytics system for automated proctoring.” Once something is flagged, the instructor can later review it and make the ultimate decision on what to do with the student.

It is genuinely fascinating how awful so many of these test proctoring services manage to be on nearly every level. From bigotry of all types to security concerns, these test proctoring services have amassed quite a wide range of criticism from all sorts of students and professors.

To begin with the most important concerns, these proctoring services tend to be extremely exclusionary to a large range of marginalized groups. Ableism is practically built into every facet of these products; many of the traits that are seen by these companies and their products as “suspicious” are nothing more than commonplace characteristics of disabled and neurodivergent people. A student with ADHD, anxiety, tics, chronic pain, etc. will be more prone to having shifty eyes, being unable to stay still in the frame, stimming and fidgeting, and other normal symptoms. To act as if these traits are inherently untrustworthy directly disadvantages disabled people and plays on several long-standing ableist tropes in our culture.

One example that gained recent media attention was a student who was failed because her online proctoring system had flagged her mouthing the question as she read it as an indication of cheating.⁴ Whether or not the student herself is disabled, preventing anything but the most silent, abled form of test-taking is ableist in and of itself. What if a student has dyslexia? Or impaired vision? Or any of the multitude of physical and mental disabilities that might lead to not being able to read as you are expected to? The student ended up getting it sorted out only after creating a heartbreaking viral TikTok in which she laid out what had happened to her. Many disabled students will not have the chance or platform needed to efficiently call out ableism if it pops up.

More than just ableism, multiple students have reported accounts of clear racial bias in how these anti-cheating softwares are developed. This isn’t anything new; racial algorithms have always had issues recognizing and handling People of Color (particularly Black people) due to them being primarily designed by and for White people. Black students have reported that their online proctoring service has been unable to recognize their faces, with two separate students reporting that they had to shine a bright light onto their face to attempt to get the software to recognize them.⁵

It’s also impossible to ignore the classism built into nearly all of these online proctoring services. Students are intended to take the exam in a room where they will be entirely by themselves. They’re supposed to minimize any distractions, and another person coming in and making noise may be enough to get the student flagged. The fact of the matter is that, for many students, this type of environment is beyond unattainable, particularly during a pandemic that has ruined many families’ careers and lives.

And all these are also interconnected issues; a Black, disabled student is more likely to be in a poorer financial situation than others. When you combine the general difficulties of being a person of multiple marginalized groups with a testing service that seems to discriminate against you at every turn of the way (not to mention just the general pains of being in a pandemic, or the absolutely normal test-taking anxiety that comes to all students!), then exam day turns into a dehumanizing, oppressive display.

The response to this by most online proctoring services is to deflect blame. They have a cover of plausible deniability because ultimately instructors are the ones making the final calls on grading. On their FAQ page, Proctorio says they “always recommend that test takers explain their living situation to their exam administrator before the exam…We know everyone is doing their best to find a neutral testing environment and have encouraged instructors to show empathy for their test takers.”

Which is all fine and dandy, but “encouraging” instructors to do better can only ever mean so much when you actively give them the tools to do worse. It should not be up to a student to have to recount the various ways that their identity will likely be deemed suspicious by a computer program or a proctor they’ll never meet, and moreover no professor should be able to uphold discriminatory practices (either accidentally or purposefully!). Accessibility and inclusion for disabled people, BIPoC, and the lower class should all be the default, not an accomodation.

And that’s really only the tip of the iceberg. Criticizing these test proctoring softwares is like shooting into a barrel of fish. There’s been plenty of privacy concerns on whether or not these products are spyware⁷, worries that the facial algorithm designed for cisgender audiences may not properly translate to trans and queer students⁸, and just general anxiety at the implication of being watched during an already extremely stressful test.⁹ These concerns are beginning to bear some fruit; University of Southern California recently announced that, for the time-being, they’ll be dropping Respondus specifically due to student concerns.¹⁰

On top of that, most of these products are also just not particularly well-designed. That complaint may feel somewhat unimportant in the face of exclusion and privacy concerns, but it’s worth it to consider. These services aren’t just inaccessible; they’re also just bad products. It’s not uncommon for them to majorly slow down your computer or glitch right before a test. When this combines with other terrible factors, it makes exams especially hellish; disability activist T. Sydney Bergeron described how their experience with ProctorU constantly glitching combined with the built-in ableism made for an overall hellish experience.¹¹

So, why are schools still using it — -or, in the case of institutions like USC, how could all of these issues ever slip by in the first place? How does the education system justify the use of a subpar, invasive service that excludes so many of its students?

The justifying force behind all of these services is the battle against “academic dishonesty.” Every single company that offers these proctoring services prides themselves specifically on their ability to root out cheaters. Moreover, they present themselves as a sort of last line of defence against this supposed epidemic of cheating sweeping through campuses. This is clear through how these companies advertise themselves to both instructors and students. If you go to Respondus’s website, you’ll find that it doesn’t organize its different services as “products” but rather “solutions.”¹² These companies paint the picture to instructors that cheating on an exam is not only a possibility, but a threat to be actively solved.

These proctoring services justify themselves to students in a similar way. A video tutorial for Respondus states that they know Respondus “takes all the fun out of online tests” (which, I mean, they’re not wrong!), but quickly follows it up by saying that it’s fine as it creates “a level playing field” against one’s classmates.¹³

ProctorU uses a similar kind of logic when communicating with students. In a stunning lack of self-awareness, ProctorU wrote a “Student Bill of Rights For Remote and Digital Work,” meant “to start a conversation” about the seven rights a student should be able to expect during a remote exam. None of the rights include anything explicitly about accessibility or inclusion, or even the right to a well-written exam. But, the fifth right mentions that students should be able to “expect that there are policies and procedures to ensure that others are not placing you at an unfair disadvantage by attempting to complete their academic work through or with inappropriate or unauthorized tools, tactics, or assistance.”¹⁴ The implication here is that students should focus on some sort of mythical threat of cheating rather than anything pertaining to the quality of their own exam-taking experience!

These companies are exploiting a fear of cheating and academic dishonesty in order to push their products. And while none of these companies should be granted any leeway, the fact that American institutions are gripped by that fear (so much so as to allow for the exclusion of vast swaths of their students!) is indicative of deep-rooted problems in our education system.

In his article on the subject called “Our Bodies Encoded,” Shea Swauger draws connections between our present-day rhetoric around cheating and its use over the years as a discriminatory dog-whistle. Faux-worrying over cheating was used against both the desegregation of White and Black students and co-education of male and female students, and to this day it still pervades conversations about immigration, poverty, etc.¹⁵ In this way, it is impossible to separate the current panic over cheating from its heavy racial and bigoted history.

But even if we could separate the two, it doesn’t change the fact that marginalized students in the now are being sacrificed in this crusade against cheating. Our educational institutions look at the academic careers of disabled students, BIPoC students, poor students — -and really, students in general! — -and sees them as justifiable collateral damage to go against this concept of cheating.

In a New York Times article, a UCLA student is quoted as saying that this technology is “something out of communist Russia.”¹⁶ I disagree. This is the natural result of an education system under capitalism. It’s the result of a system that has failed to address the rampant systemic inequalities in race, ability, class, and gender that pervade it to this day. Institutions undervalue the lives of marginalized students when choosing to use these proctoring services because they undervalue the lives of marginalized students in every other area of their decision-making.

Moreover, this is also the end result of an education system incapable of dealing with the problem it creates. If you want cheating to end, then give open-book, open-note tests where cheating wouldn’t help. If you want cheating to end, make education free and accessible for all, removing the profit incentive to cheat. If you want cheating to end, don’t force students to take potentially career-deciding tests in the middle of a deadly pandemic. If you want cheating to end, revamp our entire system that grades and tests students on arbitrary metrics (metrics that, may I add, are shaped by the abled, neurotypical, White standard) and sets them in a cutthroat environment against each other.

Eventually, the pandemic will end. Online classes may stay somewhat prevalent, but, for the most part, it’s likely that these proctoring services will see a large decrease in their usage. But even once they’re gone, we’ll be left with an education system with all of the same fundamental flaws that allowed them to come to rise in the first place. Its bigotry and willingness to sacrifice its students won’t disappear; it’ll just return to the classroom or lecture hall.

Endnotes

¹ Susan Grajek, “EDUCAUSE COVID-19 QuickPoll Results: Grading and Proctoring,” er.educause.edu, April 10, 2020, https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2020/4/educause-covid-19-quickpoll-results-grading-and-proctoring

² “LockDown Browser — Respondus,” Respondus, 2019, https://web.respondus.com/he/lockdownbrowser/

³ Shawn Hubler, “Keeping Online Testing Honest? Or an Orwellian Overreach?,” The New York Times, May 10, 2020, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/us/online-testing-cheating-universities-coronavirus.html?auth=login-google.

⁴ Margot Harris, “A Student Says Test Proctoring AI Flagged Her as Cheating When She Read a Question out Loud. Others Say the Software Could Have More Dire Consequences.,” Insider, October 4, 2020, https://www.insider.com/viral-tiktok-student-fails-exam-after-ai-software-flags-cheating-2020-10

⁵ Anushka Patil and Jonah Engel Bromwich, “How It Feels When Software Watches You Take Tests,” The New York Times, September 29, 2020, sec. Style, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/style/testing-schools-proctorio.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes.

⁶ “Frequently Asked Questions, Exam Environment — Proctorio,” proctorio.com, accessed February 2021, https://proctorio.com/frequently-asked-questions

⁷ Sean Lawson, “Are Schools Forcing Students to Install Spyware That Invades Their Privacy as a Result of the Coronavirus Lockdown?,” Forbes, April 24, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/seanlawson/2020/04/24/are-schools-forcing-students-to-install-spyware-that-invades-their-privacy-as-a-result-of-the-coronavirus-lockdown/?sh=6303c5fa638d

⁸ Shea Swauger, “Our Bodies Encoded: Algorithmic Test Proctoring in Higher Education,” Hybrid Pedagogy, April 2, 2020, https://hybridpedagogy.org/our-bodies-encoded-algorithmic-test-proctoring-in-higher-education/

⁹ Eisha Shah, “Loyola Professors Give Priority to Reducing Student Anxiety over Proctoring Exams,” Loyola Phoenix, November 18, 2020, http://loyolaphoenix.com/2020/11/loyola-professors-give-priority-to-reducing-student-anxiety-over-proctoring-exams/"

¹⁰ Daisy Kahn et al., “USC Discontinues Controversial Exam-Proctoring Spyware Respondus Monitor,” USC Annenberg Media, February 3, 2021, http://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2021/02/04/usc-discontinues-controversial-exam-proctoring-spyware-respondus-monitor/"

¹¹ Anushka Patil and Jonah Engel Bromwich, “How It Feels When Software Watches You Take Tests,” The New York Times, September 29, 2020, sec. Style, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/style/testing-schools-proctorio.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes.

¹² “Home,” Respondus, accessed February 2021, https://web.respondus.com/

¹³ Respondus, “Introduction to Respondus LockDown Browser for Students,” YouTube Video, YouTube, October 1, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuX8WoeAycs&feature=emb_title.

¹⁴ “Home,” Student Bill of Rights for Remote and Digital Work, accessed February 2021, https://studenttestingrights.org/

¹⁵ Shea Swauger, “Our Bodies Encoded: Algorithmic Test Proctoring in Higher Education,” Hybrid Pedagogy, April 2, 2020, https://hybridpedagogy.org/our-bodies-encoded-algorithmic-test-proctoring-in-higher-education/

¹⁶ Shawn Hubler, “Keeping Online Testing Honest? Or an Orwellian Overreach?,” The New York Times, May 10, 2020, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/us/online-testing-cheating-universities-coronavirus.html?auth=login-google.