u/ArtfuIhacker
UBC and IKEA partner in “Light up your Life!” student programs.
Fictitious sources announced today that, as part of the new Strategic Harm Avoidance Mechanism (SHAM) campaign promoting anti-racism on campus, UBC has partnered with IKEA to “leverage and synergize student visibility for remote invigilation through Proctorio”.
The exciting offer, billed as the more innocuous sounding “Light up your Life!” campaign, will see students being offered discounted deals on lighting to be used in their workspace. Early reports suggest that students will be given suggestions for “lighting that compliments particular skin colors during Proctorio exams”, with options ranging across a spectrum from “warm ivory” to “chocolate”, that will help them discover which “lighting solution” would be most suitable for them.
For example, students falling in the “warm ivory” sector of the color chart might choose the simple but stylish SVALLET work lamp (with LED bulb, white: $5.99). As Proctorio has no trouble recognizing light-skinned students, they really have no need of a “lighting solution” but UBC was careful to include these students in the SHAM campaign so as not to harm, discriminate against or exclude a significantly large group of students.
In contrast, so to speak, a student with a more “limestone” complexion will be told they may benefit from using the FORSÅ work lamp (with LED bulb, nickel plated: $26.99).
Moving toward the darker colors, the lighting solutions become more “assistive” with the HEKTAR floor lamp (w/3-spots and LED bulbs, dark gray: $59.99) being strongly suggested for the “espresso-toned” student.
Finally, it will be extremely strongly suggested that students on the “chocolate” end of the spectrum purchase SVARTNORA floor lamp (with LED bulb, black: $64.99). Students with this complexion will require a particularly impactful “lighting solution” as the Proctorio facial recognition/detection (which is it, Mai Colson?) software has trouble seeing their faces.
In a similarly unfortunate marginalization of an insignificantly/insufficiently large group of students, UBC continues to have some challenges around hearing the voices of these students. A fictitious leader opined that dark-skinned students have not been negatively impacted by this Proctorio: “I mean, if they had, we’d know about it and might have to do something about it.” A more credible, though inhumanely overworked elected student leader, pointed out that “the lack of students speaking up might have more to do with feeling that doing would add more stress to the already stressful exam period or perhaps negatively impact their studies, compounded with feeling alone and generally unheard at UBC”.
Questions: How many students of color have experienced racial discrimination at UBC through the continued use of Proctorio? How many is “too many”?
The Calculus of Harm https://www.sheaswauger.com/post/the-calculus-of-harm
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UBC and Proctorio to enter couples therapy
Following an extremely bumpy 2020, sources announced late last week that UBC and Proctorio are to enter couples therapy. The relationship began several years ago but only became “serious” in March last year when suddenly, and to the dismay of UBC’s friends and family, Proctorio moved into UBC’s home. Prior to this, they had met on a casual basis but, towards the end of March, the relationship was ramped up to a new level. The results have been, for the most part, disastrous.
The main issue is that Proctorio, upon moving in, became overbearing and suspicious to the degree that the few people within the couple’s bubble now refuse to visit. The very first visitor to their newly-shared home was one of UBC’s African American friends; Proctorio insisted that this person sat in a particular chair beside the Ikea Hektar floor lamp and then pointed all three spotlights on the visitor’s face (this has not happened to any other guests, so perhaps it was a once-off). Other visitors were shocked when Proctorio started making notes in an, admittedly beautiful, Moleskine Notebook every time they turned their heads or shuffled in their chair. When asked what they were doing, Proctorio said that they were merely observing behavior and that the taking of notes certainly didn’t mean that the guest was doing anything wrong. When a couple with kids visited, Proctorio insisted that the children stay out of their sight and remain silent – much to the dismay of the parents. When one guest asked to use the bathroom, Proctorio raised an eyebrow and made an note in the Moleskin before nodding in the right direction; the guest explained that they would “hold it” and made a quick exit from the couple’s home shortly afterwards.
After people stopped coming over, UBC started meeting people on Zoom which seems to only have raised Proctorio’s suspicion levels that there was something “inappropriate” going on. Proctorio was said to have developed a disconcerting habit of hovering over UBC’s shoulder to see who they were talking too and what tabs they had open. UBC found amazingly lifelike sketches of the people they had been talking to in Zoom in Proctorio’s Moleskine Notebook; the quality was “akin to something one might see in facial recognition software,” UBC was heard to mutter.
It is understood that UBC was considering breaking up with Proctorio towards the end of last year but this entry into couples therapy indicates that the relationship is to continue for a while longer. UBC was clear to point out that the agreement to live together was “extended” rather than “renewed”. Friends and family of UBC are united in the belief that UBC can find a better partner than Proctorio. Indeed, many believe that UBC has no need of a partner at all and should live alone – “strong and independent” – so that guests are free to visit their home without feeling like they are being subjected to some kind of creepy surveillance.
See Update to the community on remote proctoring software, including Proctorio (January 22, 2021) https://academic.ubc.ca/academic-community/news-announcements/news/update-remote-proctoring-software-including-proctorio
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Santa Ono preemptively pardons students under investigation for academic misconduct /𝘚
Late last night, UBC President Santa Ono announced the beginning of “Operation Academic Amnesty” whereby anyone who is currently facing an academic misconduct investigation who follows him on Instagram before Christmas Day will receive a full pardon. In the same announcement, President Ono formally named the new UBC communication model “SWIFT-TUC” [Students With Information For Teachers – Trickle Up Communications], creating what is surely a clear leader for the UBC Acronym of The Year Award (UBCAYA).
The news was announced via an Instagram DM to first-year Arts student Mike Rotchitches who, following the lead of his classmate Sally Spencer (through whom the introduction of the Microsoft Productivity Score at UBC was announced), went directly to Reddit with the news.
There was a mixed reaction from r/UBC which later spread to Discord, Twitter, and then back to Instagram (In SWIFT-TUC, this is known as “closing the loop”) and even spread to Mastodon, a new frontier for information dissemination at UBC.
The stalwarts on r/UBC were quick to have their say.
u/5318008 commented that those who were caught cheating during the pandemic should all be, in turn, “tied to the engineering cairn and whipped, both as an example and as a way to paint the cairn in a novel way”.
A more compassionate u/UBCVegan commented that: “This feeds two birds with one scone. For one thing, the headlines would be fantastic: ‘Santa’s gift of compassion lifts hearts at UBC!’ but also, our burned out professors and administrators can avoid the absolute nightmare of processing all the paperwork needed to push the flood of discipline cases forward; it’s a total win!”
While many questioned whether President Ono could actually grant such pardons, apparently he is well within his rights to do so. Though it has never been done at such a scale, with such haste, or under such scrutiny, Section 32.5 (6)(MC-1994) of the University Act states that the president can pardon students who have been found guilty of academic misconduct or terminate any investigations into such misconduct.
However, The Ubyssey has reported one senior figure explaining that the this apparent “Christmas clemency” is actually being used as a test to see if important (i.e. not faculty or students) stakeholders will push back against the president wielding such power. This is, or will become, necessary because it is believed that several prominent, but as yet unnamed, alumni donors may soon face retroactive academic misconduct discipline as academic integrity technologies can now be used to easily identify cheating in ways that older technologies could not.
It is believed that President Ono will, in the future, be able to pardon these alumni donors and so forestall the need to review their work. A fictitious senior source opined that “this could very likely open up a whole new revenue stream”, whereby one could indemnify one’s UBC credentials by becoming an alumni donor, thus making sure that (for those who have the means) “the chickens would never come home to roost”.
Allegations of plagiarism have been directed towards such prominent figures as Vladimir Putin and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. [*] and have even caused the resignations of senior German government officials including the education minister, who had her doctorate revoked in 2013, and the Minister for Defense, who resigned in 2011 after a being investigated for similar academic misconduct violations. A senior source shared their worries about how many of our own professors and senior figures in Canada might be vulnerable to such retroactive accountability: “Given we can now quite easily run newly digitized versions of much older student work through plagiarism detection software, it is likely that work going back 25+ years will be subject to the rigorous digital scrutiny it deserves. Sooner or later, we will need to take the flower by the thorns and look into everyone’s past to ensure that everyone is held accountable to the standards we uphold today.”
* See Dawson, P. (2021). Defending Assessment Security in a Digital World. London: Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429324178
Chapter 7: Surveillance and the weaponisation of academic integrity
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UBC to roll out Microsoft Productivity Score feature for faculty in the new year /S
Despite huge pushback from other corporate interests, UBC will begin monitoring faculty productivity remotely through the use of the Microsoft Productivity Score feature in early 2021.
The important announcement was made late last night through an Instagram DM from UBC President Santa Ono to first-year Arts student Sally Spencer. A bemused Spencer followed the latest dissemination procedures for such high-level communiqués and immediately posted a screenshot of the DM to Reddit inquiring as to what it all meant. News of the Reddit post quickly spread to Twitter, thereby informing many of those impacted. Soon after, the news was posted on Instagram, thus closing the loop in this new indirect form of communication with stakeholders being trialed at UBC. Sources believe that, since the majority of those impacted have now been made aware, an official email can now be sent out to confirm what is already known and to inform that another, more detailed, email will soon follow.
There was an immediate response from faculty, who complained across several social media platforms about the intrusive nature of this software and how they feel they are being subjected to surveillance in their own homes. Some of the more hip faculty members took to Discord to express concerns about privacy while others took to Facebook to decry this attempted “intellectual property grab,” concerned that this will give UBC unfettered access to all their class PowerPoint presentations. Others say that this underscores the distrust that UBC has of faculty working from home and that this assumes an unnecessarily adversarial relationship between administration and faculty.
Fictional Microsoft CEO Mai Colson was quick to respond to some of the more outspoken critics on Reddit, jumping in personally and singling out one particular user on Reddit by posting a screenshot of that user’s productivity report for the day that showed that had spent most of their time making memes using MS Paint and playing Solitaire. A (comparatively) more professional Microsoft spokesperson pointed out: “Our productivity tool in simply a feature that we make available to our corporate clients. How they choose to use this tool and which settings they choose to implement is in their hands. We believe that the right training should be given to the right people and the tool should be used in the right way to minimize harm to workers. Our software doesn’t harm people; admins do.”
Update 1
Through The Ubyssey, UBC has responded to faculty concerns by pointing out that this feature is simply another way that faculty wellbeing is being maintained and monitored. They note that many faculties are doing outstanding work from home and, through use of the Productivity Score feature, their contribution can be quantified and recognized. Outstanding faculty will be given Microsoft Band 3 smartwatches and wellness trackers, as well as other productivity multipliers such as standing desks with built in cameras and thermal sensors and the new Microsoft Smart Speaker (Whisper Edition).
An official statement from @/realUBC pointed out that “if faculty are working as diligently as they should be, then they should have no cause for concern over the introduction of this feature. Those who have nothing to hide should have nothing to fear. In fact, it is to their benefit that their professional integrity can be monitored and maintained so that the UBC brand can be protected.” A senior decision maker was also quick to point out that all data related to faculty will be kept on Canadian servers, ensuring that it is FIPPA compliant so “legally, there is really nothing wrong with this at all….really. Ours is not to reason whether we should do something, merely whether we can do so legally.”
@/realUBC also noted that: “Maintaining academic integrity extends beyond students and assessment. Many faculty were happy to help ensure that students were held to account, so we cannot see how those same faculty could possibly object to this important and helpful new feature. Indeed, in order to protect the UBC brand and ensure that our ranking doesn’t drop, we need to be able to provide metrics to accreditation bodies and other bodies that inquire into academic procedure and productivity within the institution.”
Feel free to add your own updates to this story.
“The least powerful people in the system are students…if you have any power as an educator, say no.” @Jessifer#AgainstSurveillance
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u/JGF2020
@tuummess
