University students say excessive AI monitoring of their exams is creating “constant fear” and increasing stress levels during important assessments while others wait months for outcomes of cheating investigations.
AI proctors, or virtual invigilators – which were commonplace as a way of cracking down on cheating when assessments were conducted remotely during the pandemic – monitor students’ behaviour during exams by recording their screen, observing their keystrokes, using the computer microphone to listen for suspicious noises and tracking eye movement to ensure students don’t look off-screen at notes.
“All of them remain creepy,” said Professor Cath Ellis, pro vice-chancellor, quality and integrity at Western Sydney University.
And while many universities have returned to on-campus assessments, the use of AI proctors remains widespread to address the rise of AI aiding academic misconduct at universities across Australia.
The high degree of surveillance is affecting student performance, says University of Technology Sydney student society technology officer Sina Afsharmehr.
“It’s definitely something that a lot of students are worried about,” he said. UTS still conducts exams virtually and uses a platform called ProctorU to closely monitor students.
“Every student that’s sitting an exam knows that there’s a risk if they look away from their screen [because it is flagged as suspicious behaviour], and I think for a lot of students that does cause a lot of stress.”
Economics student Eamonn Ryan says he was wrongly accused of cheating by an AI invigilator.Credit: Janie Barrett
Ellis said it’s ineffective for students to have their learning measured this way. “The big concern I’ve got with it is it’s a fundamentally dehumanising experience for how we measure and assure learning,” she said.
“I really am fully sympathetic to these students ... because it is hostile.”
When suspicious behaviour is flagged by the AI invigilator, the investigation process is often lengthy and labour-intensive. Ellis says human invigilators must then watch back the recorded footage and assess whether a student was likely to have cheated.
This can be difficult when seemingly innocuous behaviour – such as looking around the room or murmuring while pondering an exam question – is investigated.
Cath Ellis, pro vice-chancellor, quality and integrity at Western Sydney University.Credit:
“The university would get a flag, and then some human would have to sit and watch that video to figure out if that was cheating or thinking,” Ellis said of the process. “We have to pay a lot of human beings to do a lot of frankly quite boring work.”
Afsharmehr said he was concerned by the lack of transparency related to reviews by human invigilators. “They could really just think, ‘oh yeah, you’re looking at your phone, you’re cheating’,” he said.
UTS student Eamonn Ryan has been waiting months for an outcome after AI flagged his behaviour as suspicious during an exam last year.
The second-year economics student sat an exam on November 22 last year and received an email on December 12 – shortly before results were due back – informing him “further investigation” of his exam was under way due to an incident detected by the AI invigilator.
Ryan maintains he never cheated and doesn’t know what triggered the accusation.
Eamonn Ryan has waited six months for an outcome of the investigation into his conduct.Credit: Janie Barrett
Almost six months since the exam, Ryan has not received his mark or an update on the process of the investigation, despite sending an inquiring email in February.
“It’s just so inconsistent with the rules, and it doesn’t really seem like they know what they’re doing,” said Ryan, who added that he was “really stressed” it could negatively influence his studies.
Ellis says long waits such as this add “another layer to the procedurally unfair nature” of the exams. “Even if they did do something wrong, it’s not OK to ask them to wait six to 12 months for an outcome.
“That’s holding up their progression, that’s holding up their graduation. It’s making some students unnecessarily prolong their visa if they’re an international student.”
UTS declined to comment on Ryan’s case due to “privacy obligations” but said students always had the right of reply to allegations of cheating and issues of concern are reviewed before any allegations.
Despite his experience, Ryan thinks remote exams should remain the status quo, and the technical issues just need to be “ironed out”.
He lives about an hour from campus and finds “there’s a certain advantage to being in the comfort of your own home, I guess, rather than being in a very sterile test room”.
Afsharmehr said it also meant the university could manage exam logistics more easily: “There are groups on both sides that do benefit from this sort of situation.”
Ellis thinks the headache of trying to monitor student behaviour is a sign that universities should move on from exams altogether and assess progress more authentically, for example through one-on-one consultations with their professor.
She pointed to the approach of Swinburne University, which is reducing the number of exams, as the way forward: “It’s re-humanising assessment, and it’s re-humanising the learning experience for students, and that’s definitely where universities have to go.”
University of Melbourne student union president Joshua Stagg agreed that such an approach would ensure students performed better. Students at Melbourne now sit exams almost entirely in person with human invigilators, and some assessments account for 100 per cent of a student’s grade.
“I think that the old style of focusing everything upon the examination is just a bit outdated,” Stagg said.