In the nexus of integrity and surveillance: Proctoring (re)considered

Abstract

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted higher education in many ways, such as the move to Emergency Remote Online Teaching and Learning (EROTL), often including a move to online assessments and examinations. With evidence of increased academic dishonesty in unproctored online assessment, institutions sought ways to ensure academic and institutional integrity and reputation. In doing this, many institutions selected and implemented online proctoring solutions. Objectives: This article maps considerations of online proctoring solutions in the nexus between ensuring academic and institutional integrity and reputation, and addressing stakeholder concerns regarding invasive surveillance and the impacts on student privacy. Methods: The study involved a PRISMA-informed systematic review of three digital libraries, namely Clarivate's Web of Science, Elsevier's Scopus, and Springer's SpringerLink, for peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings. After screening, a final corpus of 27 articles was analysed. Results and Conclusions: The findings include evidence that, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, higher education institutions were largely influenced by cost, usability and efficiency in choosing online proctoring solutions to ensure academic and institutional integrity. Student privacy was either considered in terms of data protection and transparency, or not at all. This article aims to provide valuable insight into the criteria used to select online proctoring solutions to ensure academic and institutional integrity in online examination environments. Student privacy appears not to have the consideration it warrants.