The Problems of Panoptic Invigilation Programs as Evidence of Cheating

Abstract

The demand for online invigilation programs had dramatically increased due to the expansion of online learning; however, demand was further galvanized by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, there are many technical and ethical problems with these programs that cannot be easily mitigated. Notably, they are beset by several inherent racial, gender, neuro-normative, and socio-economic biases, which means that people of color, women, neuro-divergent, and less affluent students will be more likely to be accused of cheating. While these issues have received increasing attention, a minimal amount of focus has been given to the legitimacy of these programs’ key indicator of academic malfeasance: ocular motility. The reliance upon eye movements to identify potential academic dishonesty is problematic because ocular motility is fundamental to cognitive processes such as information recall and creative thought. Given that the consequences of finding a student in violation of honor code strictures can have devastating impacts on a student’s career and given that these impacts do not affect all students equally, institutions and instructors that have adopted these panoptic surveillance programs should heavily consider the limitations of these programs, the dangerous biases that are built into them and their deployment, and the cascade of inequitable outcomes they may help propagate.