Resources and Rights

'Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Equitable Benefit-Sharing Over Genetic Resources: Digital Sequence Information (DSI) and a New Technological Landscape' by Chidi Oguamanam in Dwight Newman (ed), Research Handbook on the International Law of Indigenous Rights (Elgar, Forthcoming) comments

From the late twentieth-century and continuing, there has been significant traction in the recognition of the contributions of the knowledge of Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) to human development across diverse disciplines, especially in the environmental and life sciences. A feature of this trend is support for the participation of IPLCs in the making of relevant laws and policies as well as for them to equitably share in the benefits resulting from research and development (R&D) and various technological interventions in the utilization of their knowledge and their stewardship of genetic and various natural resources. The period under reference is characterized by rapid pace in technological evolution, notably at the interface of digital and information processing technologies and in the biological or general life sciences. While these technological revolutions have capacity to enhance the protection of the rights and interests of IPLCs, they also raise significant concerns and obstacles to the latter’s ability to optimally realize their rights and interests in the new and increasingly complex technological landscape. Nowhere is this technologically propelled conundrum more evident than in the context of IPLCs’ rights in access and equitable benefit sharing (ABS) over genetic resources and associated indigenous or traditional knowledge and the broad spectrum of transformations in life sciences R&D as symbolized in the inchoate concept of digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources. This chapter maps the legal framework for IPLCs rights in the ABS dynamic and how mutually reinforcing developments around DSI and synthetic biology present a significant threat in law, science and policy to the realization of those rights. It supports a more prudent and less hasty but pragmatic policy directions to address the challenges which the new and emergent technological dynamics pose for IPLCs.

'The Rights of Nature as a Bridge between Land-Ownership Regimes: The Potential of Institutionalized Interplay in Post-Colonial Societies' by Alex Putzer, Tineke Lambooy, Ignace Breemer and Aafje Rietveld in Transnational Environmental Law comments 

Despite the growing prominence and use of Rights of Nature (RoN), doubts remain as to their tangible effect on environmental protection efforts. By analyzing two initiatives in post-colonial societies, we argue that they do influence the creation of institutionalized bridges between differing land-ownership regimes. Applying the methodology of inter-legality, we examine the Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008 and the Ugandan National Environment Act 2019. We identify five normative spheres that influence land-ownership regimes. We find that the established Ecuadorian RoN have an institutionalized effect on the nation's legal system. Their more recently established Ugandan counterpart shows potential to develop in the same direction. 

 The authors state 

Rights of Nature (RoN) do not represent one single train of thought, but many – they ‘have both multiple histories and multiple meanings’. Despite, or precisely because of, this heterogeneity, the idea is increasingly used to address Earth's ecological crises by challenging overly anthropocentric mindsets. Up to June 2021, at least 409 legal RoN initiatives have emerged across 39 countries. Regardless of their mounting use, Darpö, in a recent report for the European Parliament, submits that RoN are not a ‘paradigmatic revolution for environmental law’. He argued that the movement faces the same problems as conventional protection efforts, including insufficient access to justice and financial difficulties. We agree that RoN are not a panacea for nature protection issues. However, as we argue in this article, RoN can be a promising ally in bridging conflicting land-ownership regimes. 

The ownership of nature has long been identified as an important factor within environmental protection efforts. Relatively new is the connection of ownership rights with RoN. Among the authors who do address it is Boyd, who sees the vision of nature as property as one of ‘three damaging ideas’ that stand as the root for the ‘ongoing use and misuse of other animals, species, and nature’. Burdon looks at private property, reconceptualizing it ‘as a relationship between and among members of the Earth community’. Bradshaw discusses an extension of property rights holders to include non-human animals. Kauffman and Martin reject a complete abandonment of property, reflecting upon an interplay between RoN, property, and markets instead. Similarly, Sanders writes about natural self-ownership.  It becomes evident that the relationship between RoN and ownership has all but a common trajectory. Consequently, rather than adopting any particular prescription, we conduct an empirical analysis of the practical implementation. In particular, we look at how RoN affect land-ownership regimes in post-colonial societies. 

Post-colonial societies experience frequent conflict with regard to land ownership; the reasons for this vary. A dominant explanation refers to economic growth as a motivator for colonial land grabs. A less scrutinized explanation looks at the, at times, fundamentally opposing understandings of nature. While colonizing normative spheres have largely reproduced an anthropocentric concept of land ownership, colonized ones have offered non-anthropocentric alternatives. Chthonic legal traditions are exemplary of the latter. National and international efforts are increasingly considering the perspectives of a global chthonic population of 476.6 million. While they represent little more than 6% of humanity, their ‘ownership’ of nature is disproportionately higher. In 2018, Garnett and co-authors estimated that chthonic peoples ‘influence land management across at least 28.1% of the [world's] land area’; 20% of that territory overlaps with at least 40% of global protected areas and intact landscapes. Put differently, while accounting for little more than 1/16th of the global population, chthonic peoples manage 2/5ths of the world's protected land. 

A major limitation to making efficient use of this disproportionately high share is these people's ambiguous ‘influence on land management’, which can range from full governance to occasional consultancy. Conceptual clarity is crucial to combat legal uncertainty, not only for chthonic peoples. 

With these connections and overlapping interests in mind, we analyze two cases: namely, the 2008 Ecuadorian Constitution and the 2019 Ugandan National Environment Act. Whereas both countries share similar histories regarding their evolution of land-ownership regimes, we compare the differing institutionalization effects of their respective RoN initiatives. To explicate the resulting ‘bridge’, we use inter-legality – a method that formally considers all ‘vantage points’ that contribute to the creation of a specific law. We consider this perspective to be promising because it explicitly avoids enforcing or reproducing post-colonial legal hegemonies. By scrutinizing every relevant normative sphere and evaluating its respective importance in a given context, inter-legality aims to heighten the legitimacy of any legal norm-creation process. 

Keeping such an inclusive approach in mind, we examine both case studies, following a similar structure. We start with a general introduction and subsequently identify the relevant normative spheres that have historically influenced land-ownership regimes. These spheres include (i) post-colonial political and legal systems; (ii) chthonic legal traditions; (iii) civil society organizations; (iv) international (soft) law; and (v) local and multinational corporations (Sections 2 and 3). In the second step, we analyze the process that led to the respective RoN initiatives (Section 4). While we find elements of a bridging function, we remain only cautiously optimistic regarding future developments (Section 5).

'The Right to Social Security' by Beth Goldblatt in Malcolm Langford and Katharine Young (eds.)  The Oxford Handbook of Economic and Social Rights (Oxford University Press) states

The chapter considers the origins and purpose of the right to social security and its status in international law, regional human rights instruments, and national constitutions. It discusses the developing interpretation of the right in international law and in national jurisprudence and examines the right in relation to welfare cutbacks in the context of increasing austerity in the Global North and the growth in social security provision in the Global South as a response to poverty, including with regard to the ILO’s recommendation for social protection floors. The chapter gives particular consideration to the relationship between the right to social security and equality. It also focuses on two further issues that touch on core questions regarding the interpretation of the right to social security: conditionality and a basic income. All three discussions point to central considerations of access to the right, its scope, and its purpose. It should be noted that, since the time of writing, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented an extreme new context in which to consider how the right to social security links with vulnerability, equality, and solidarity. While this analysis, especially in relation to conditionality, basic income, and equality, is pertinent to the response to the health and economic crisis that has followed COVID-19, this chapter does not incorporate a discussion of international and national responses.

Hemlock

'The Death of Socrates: Managerialism, metrics and bureaucratisation in universities' by Yancey Orr and Raymond Orr in (2016) 58(2) Australian Universities Review 15 comments 

Neoliberalism exults the ability of unregulated markets to optimise human relations. Yet, as David Graeber has recently illustrated, it is paradoxically built on rigorous systems of rules, metrics and managers. The potential transition to a market-based tuition and research- funding model for higher education in Australia has, not surprisingly, been preceded by managerialism, metrics and bureaucratisation (rendered hereafter as ‘MMB’) in the internal functioning of universities in the last decade. This article explores the effects of MMB on the lives of academics, the education of students, and the culture and functioning of universities. By examining some of the labour activities of academics, work scheduling and time use, we demonstrate that MMB reduces the efficiency and quality of academic teaching, research and administration. Even more worrying, by qualitatively assessing the language, values and logic increasingly present in the academic culture of higher education in Australia, we show that MMB does not simply fail to improve universities or accurately assess academic achievement, it replaces the core values of education with hollow bureaucratic instrumentalism. 

The authors state

 Then raising the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he [Socrates] drank off the poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could no longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept, not for him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having to part from such a friend.– Plato, Phaedo

The importance of measurement and standardisation for contemporary systems of control is an enduring theme associated with modernity (Weber, 1978 [1922]; Foucault, 1990 [1976]; Scott, 1998). The rise of such regimes and mentalities has not only been understood as altering structures of power but also contributing to a loss of heterogeneous forms of value, community and imagination (Alexander, 2013; Graeber, 2001; Graeber, 2015). Perhaps most famously, Weber, writing of changes in both global spirituality (2001 [1905]) and university systems (1946 [1919]) of his own day,described the effects of such processes as ‘disenchantment’ (Entzauberung). The ethnological studies tracing systems of control and subsequent disenchantment in the context of religion (Eliade, 1987), economy (Polanyi, 2001 [1944]), the family (Lasch, 1995) and sex (see Robinson, 2014 on Weber) remain seminal works in 20th Century social sciences.Such transformations are no longer research questions only to be explored in the field.The rationalisation triumvirate of metrics, managerialism and bureaucratisation (MMB) now organise the educational, professional and intellectual terrain of many universities, their academics and students. 

Reflecting this general trend in humanism’s response to modernity, we offer a small study within the context of the academy that explores such systems of control and the subsequent disenchantment of secular society’s once sacred place. 

This article presents a series of examples of what MMB can do to education, thereby providing feedback for academic administrators as well as analytical techniques for understanding MMB’s effects for academic staff, with their responsibility as stewards of the university,apart from simply ‘employees’ of it. To these ends, our examination of MMB in the academy is divided into two sections. The first addresses labour inefficiencies through how, by its own desire to make universities more productive and legible workplaces through centralised control, MMB creates a remarkably inefficient and unclear system through excessive management. To do this, we compare the labour (defined in time, attention and personnel) to perform common tasks in what we define as managerial and non-managerial universities. The second section explores the effects of MMB. In particular, we describe the values, behaviours and mentalities now emerging within the MMB system as an illustration of what might be described as the disenchantment of academic life.We base this comparative method from our experiences in North American and Australian universities which, for the authors; represent examples of non-MMB and MMB educational institutions, respectively. Within the context of this paper,we focus our analysis on those clear accounts of the differences between these systems, in the hope of bringing greater empirical accuracy and thus more pointed criticism of such a fundamental transformation occurring in higher education. 

The thematic division of this article addresses two common positions supporting MMB in the academy.To proponents of this type of broad rationalisation, such changes in the university could appear to improve the efficiency and quality of the institution. It must first be pointed out that the managerialism found in current MMB institutions is not the traditional form of administration within a university of deans, provosts, and vice-chancellors / presidents (Ginsberg 2011). In the MMB model we refer to in this paper, managerialism extends beyond the use of business managers in administrative roles. Decisions about teaching techniques, research projects, university educational philosophies and the daily activities of academics are increasingly micromanaged. In such a system, even when administrators are academics, they make decisions based on metrics rather than human judgment. Yet, this contemporary brand of MMB in education does not reflect all types of managerialism in the private sector. The type of management philosophy that academics now often face in universities that focuses on workflows and metrics is a type of Taylorism. Associated with Fredrick Taylor (1856-1915), such a philosophy reduced labour into a series of discrete elements, each regulated by a management structure. By controlling the technical aspects of production rather than the culture or satisfaction of workers, management asserts that output is increased. Coming into fashion in the early 20th century,Taylorism has, since the 1930s, been viewed as severely flawed for industries that lack easily measured and agreed-upon tasks or outputs (Akerlof & Kranton, 2005). Academic work is not readily measurable in the context of other industries,such as the fast-food industry, that still use Taylorist management techniques. The examples highlighting the inefficiencies of MMB in the first part of this article are to address supporters of this new system on technocratic grounds. 

Other supporters of MMB in education hold the ostensibly reasonable view that universities, as part of society, change within society. In a world increasingly beset by MMB, should not universities mirror this transformation? Is ‘institutional isomorphism’ (see DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) undesired in the 21st Century? To this seemingly reasonable position, we have addressed the second part of this article. It shows how such transformations alter the search for knowledge, the integrity of educators and the experiences of students. It does so through altering the values, discourse and behaviour associated with the academy. We demonstrate that the resulting culture of the university is antithetical to the venerable tradition of the advancement and dissemination of knowledge. 

Before turning to our analysis, we, given the limited space within this article, will offer parsimonious definitions of the key terms to be used.We operationally define MMB as constituted from a combination of these three concepts:

Bureaucratisation: The prevalence within an institution for decisions to be made by a codified set of regulations rather than the judgments of individuals. 

Metrics: The use of formal quantitative analytics rather than human judgment in evaluating the worth of individuals and actions. 

Managerialism: Through the use of bureaucratic procedures and metrics, the activities of individuals and groups should be controlled by individuals not performing such activities.This is often believed to increase efficiency. 

Cheating

‘On the Efficacy of Online Proctoring using Proctorio’ by Laura Bergmans, Nacir Bouali, Marloes Luttikhuis and Arend Rensink in Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education 1 (CSEDU 2021) 279-290 comments 

In this paper we report on the outcome of a controlled experiment using one of the widely available and used online proctoring systems, Proctorio. The system uses an AI-based algorithm to automatically flag suspicious behaviour, which can then be checked by a human agent. The experiment involved 30 students, 6 of which were asked to cheat in various ways, while 5 others were asked to behave nervously but make the test honestly. This took place in the context of a Computer Science programme, so the technical competence of the students in using and abusing the system can be considered far above average. 

The most important findings were that none of the cheating students were flagged by Proctorio, whereas only one (out of 6) was caught out by an independent check by a human agent. The sensitivity of Proctorio, based on this experience, should therefore be put at very close to zero. On the positive side, the students found (on the whole) the system easy to set up and work with, and believed (in the majority) that the use of online proctoring per se would act as a deterrent to cheating. 

The use of online proctoring is therefore best compared to taking a placebo: it has some positive influence, not because it works but because people believe that it works, or that it might work. In practice however, before adopting this solution, policy makers would do well to balance the cost of deploying it (which can be considerable) against the marginal benefits of this placebo effect. 

The authors state

 All over the world, schools and universities have had to adapt their study programmes to be conducted purely online, because of the conditions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The University of Twente is no exception: from mid-March to the end of August, no teaching-related activities (involving groups) were allowed on-campus. 

Where online teaching has worked at least reasonably well, in that we have by and by found effective ways to organise instruction, tutorials, labs and projects using online means, the same cannot be said for the testing part of the programme. Traditionally, we test our students using a mix of group project work and individual written tests. The latter range from closed-book multiple choice tests to open-book tests with quite wide-ranging, open questions. Such tests are (traditionally) always taken in a controlled setting, where the students are collected in a room for a fixed period, at the start of which they are given their question sheet and at the end of which they hand in their answers. During that period, a certain number of invigilators (in other institutions called proctors) are present to observe the students’ behaviour so as to deter them from cheating — defined as any attempt to answer the questions through other means than those intended and proscribed by the teacher. This system for testing is, we believe, widespread (if not ubiquitous) in education. 

Changing from such a controlled setting to online testing obviously opens up many more opportunities for cheating. It is hard to exaggerate the long-term threat that this poses to our educational system: without reliable testing, the level of our students cannot be assessed and a university (or any other) diploma essentially becomes worthless. We have to do more than just have students make write the test online and hope for the best. 

Solutions may be sought in many different directions, ranging from changing the nature of the test altogether (from a written test to some other form, such as a take-home or oral test), to offering multiple or randomised versions to different students, or applying plagiarism checks to the answers, or calling upon the morality of the students and having them sign a pledge of good faith; or any combination of the above. All of these have their pros and cons. In this paper, rather than comparing or combining these measures, we concentrate on one particular solution that has found widespread adoption: that of online proctoring. In particular, we describe an experiment in using one of the three systems for online proctoring that have been recommended in the quickscan (see (Quickscan SURF, 2020)) by SURF, a “collaborative organisation for ICT in Dutch education and research” of which all public Dutch institutes of higher education are members. 

Approach. 

Online proctoring refers to the principle of remotely monitoring the actions of a student while she is taking a test, with the idea of detecting behaviour that suggests fraud. The monitoring consists of using camera, microphone and typically some degree of control over the computer of the student. The detection can be done by a human being (the proctor, also called invigilator in other parts of the Anglosaxon world), or it can be done through some AI-based algorithm — or a combination of both. 

The question we set out to answer in this paper is: how well does it work? In other words, is online proctoring a good way to detect actual cheating, without accusing honest students — in more formal terms: is it both sensitive and specific? How do students experience the use of proctoring? 

In answering this question, we have limited ourselves to a single proctoring system, Proctorio, which is one of the three SURF-approved systems of (Quickscan SURF, 2020). The main reason for selecting Proctorio is the usability of the system; it is possible to use it on the majority of operating systems by installing a Google Chrome extension and it can be used for large groups of students. It features automatic detection of behaviour deemed suspicious in a number of categories, ranging from hand and eye movement to computer usage or sound. The teacher can select the categories she wants to take into account, as well as the sensitivity level at which the behaviour is flagged as suspicious, at any point during the proceedings (before, during or after the test). Proctorio outputs an annotated real-time recording for each student, which can be separately checked by the teacher so that the system’s suspicions can be confirmed or negated. The system is described in some detail in Section 2. 

Using Proctorio, we have conducted a controlled randomized trial involving 30 students taking a test specifically set for this experiment. The students were volunteers and were hired for their efforts; their results on the test did not matter to the experiment in any way. The subject of the test was a first-year course that they had taken in the past, meaning that the nature of the questions and the expected kind of answers were familiar. Six out of the 30 students were asked to cheat during the test, in ways to be devised by themelves, so as to fool the online proctor; the rest behaved honestly. Moreover, out of the 24 honest students, five were asked to act nervously; in this way we wanted to try and elicit false positives from the system. 

Besides Proctorio’s capabilities for automatic analysis, we also conducted a human scan of the (annotated) videos, by staff unaware of the role of the students (but aware of the initial findings of Proctorio). We expected that humans would be better than the AI-based algorithm in detecting certain behaviours as cheating, but worse in maintaining a sufficient and even level of attention during the tedious task of monitoring. 

Findings. 

Summarising, our main findings were: The automatic analysis of Proctorio detected none of the cheating students; the human reviewers detected 1 (out of 6). Thus, the percentage of false negatives was very large, pointing to a very low sensitivity of online proctoring. 

None of the honest students were flagged as suspicious by Proctorio, whereas one was suspected by the human reviewer. Thus, the percentage of false positives was zero for the automatic detec- tion, and 4% for the human analysis, pointing to a relatively high specificity achievable by online proctoring (which, however, is quite useless in the light of the disastrous sensitivity). Furthermore, we gained valuable insights into the conditions necessary to make online proctoring an acceptable measure in the opinion of the participating students. 

The outcome of the experiment is presented in more detail in Section 3, and discussed in Section 4 (including threats to validity). After discussing related work (Section 5), in Section 6 we draw some conclusions.

'Cheating in online courses: Evidence from online proctoring' by Seife Dendira and Stockton Maxwell in (2020) 2 Computers in Human Behavior Reports 100033 comments 

This study revives the unsettled debate on the extent of academic dishonesty in online courses. It takes advantage of a quasi experiment in which online proctoring using a webcam recording software was introduced for high-stakes exams in two online courses. Each course remained the same in its structure, content and assessments before and after the introduction of online proctoring. Analysis of exam scores shows that online proctoring was associated with a decrease in average performance in both courses. Furthermore, the decrease in scores persists when accounting for potential confounding factors in a regression framework. Finally, in separate regressions of exam performance on student characteristics, the regression explanatory power was higher for scores under proctoring. We interpret these results as evidence that cheating took place in the online courses prior to proctoring. The results also imply that online proctoring is an effective tool to mitigate academic dishonesty in online courses. 

 The authors state 

In the past two decades, higher education institutions have experienced unprecedented growth in online learning. In the U.S., where this study took place, enrollment in distance higher education grew steadily between 2002 and 2016. Since 2012, whereas overall enrollment in higher education has been declining, growth in distance education has in fact been rising. As of 2016, the latest year for which data are published, close to a third of all college students were taking at least one distance course (Seaman et al., 2018). 

More than half of these distance learners were students that were combining non-distance (face-to-face, F2F) learning with distance learning. Accordingly, today many “traditional” institutions offer a menu of online courses as well as fully online programs. This is prompted by sustained demand for such courses and programs – in 2016, for example, about 30 percent of students in public and private non-profit institutions in the U.S. enrolled in at least one distance learning course (source: own calculation using data in Seaman et al., 2018). It also appears that educators in all types of institutions have recognized that a structural shift has occurred, and that online delivery and learning will be a mainstay of higher education in the future. 

Therefore, the dialogue surrounding online education has turned to how best to deliver online courses. Various aspects of online courses, such as modality (fully online versus hybrid; synchronous versus asynchronous), technology platform, assessment and accessibility are considered and debated. The goal of such dialogue, ultimately, is to design and deliver online courses in which student learning and experience are at least on par with traditional (F2F) courses. Given this goal, the question of how much learning takes place in online courses (relative to the traditional/F2F mode) has become a critical point of contention (see, among others, Cavanaugh & Jacquemin, 2015; Alpert et al., 2016; Dendir, 2019; Paul & Jefferson, 2019). 

A particularly pertinent issue in this regard is academic dishonesty (McCabe et al., 2012). Some argue that even the measures that are used to gauge learning in online courses, such as scores on formative or summative assessments, do not truly reflect learning because they are possibly tainted by cheating that occurs during these assessments (Harmon et al., 2010; Arnold, 2016). If, for example, exam score distributions turn out to be comparable in an online course and its F2F counterpart, it does not mean that comparable learning takes place in the two modes simply because the online scores are likely inflated by cheating.1 Such arguments are predicated on the assumption that academic dishonesty is more prevalent in online courses than F2F ones (Kennedy et al., 2000; Young, 2012). 

Various arguments are provided as to why online courses could be more amenable to academic dishonesty. One is that because assessments often happen in unsupervised or unproctored settings, it is difficult to confirm the identity of the test taker (Kraglund-Gauthier & Young, 2012). Similarly, online test takers can use unauthorized resources (e.g. cheat sheets, books or online materials) during assessments. Also, the online environment – by the mere absence of a close relationship and interaction with an instructor – can encourage collaborative (group) work with other students (Sendag et al., 2012; McGee, 2013; Hearn Moore et al., 2017). 

While there is also growing empirical evidence showing that academic dishonesty is relatively more common in online learning, the debate is not yet fully settled (Harton et al., 2019; Peled et al., 2019). It is in this context that the current study presents evidence from a quasi/natural experiment that occurred in two online courses at a midsize comprehensive university in the U.S. The experiment involved the introduction of online proctoring using a webcam recording software for high-stakes exams. The structure, content and assessments (exams) in each course remained the same before and after the introduction of online proctoring. A change in student performance, if any, can therefore be attributed to the mitigation of cheating after online proctoring came into place, and provides direct evidence on the scale of academic dishonesty in online courses. 

Relative to much of the existing literature, the treatment here is unique because proctoring did not entail a change in modality. Many studies that investigate academic dishonesty typically compare student performance in unproctored online assessments and proctored F2F ones. But a comparison of student performance in proctored F2F exams and unproctored online exams may not be entirely valid because some of the performance differences could be due to the testing environment per se, apart from the effect of supervision (Fask et al., 2014; Butler-Henderson & Crawford, 2020). By comparing performance in the same learning mode (online) but before and after the advent of supervision, this study avoids any such complications. Furthermore, from a practical point of view, in many scenarios in-person proctoring of tests may not be feasible for fully online courses. Therefore, the results of the current study also provide evidence on the efficacy of easily adoptable, relatively low-cost online proctoring in online courses. 

The findings of the study suggest that cheating was taking place in the unsupervised exams. First, simple bivariate analyses show that there was a significant drop in average exam scores in both courses after online proctoring was introduced, in many cases by more than a letter grade. This is despite the fact that student characteristics remained largely similar before and after proctoring (implying sample selection was unlikely to be a factor). Second, explicitly accounting for student characteristics in a multiple regression framework could not explain away the decrease in performance. Finally, a comparison of the explanatory powers of regressions of scores on student ability and maturity indicators showed that they were higher for proctored exams. From these results one can also infer that online proctoring of assessments is a viable strategy to mitigate cheating in online courses. 

The balance of the paper is organized as follows. The next section reviews the related literature on academic dishonesty. Section 3 describes the setup of the study and data. Section 4 presents bivariate analysis, the regression methodology and results. Section 5 points out some caveats and limitations of the study. The last section concludes and draws a few implications on the basis of the results of the study.

Frustration

In Elliott v State of Queensland (Queensland Health) [2022] QIRC 332 the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission in considering a dismissal over disregard of a vaccination directive states 

[25] The department submits that the decision to make a disciplinary finding against Ms Elliott was fair and reasonable for the following reasons: The directive is lawful (being issued pursuant to section 51 of the Hospital and Health Boards Act 2011 (Qld)) and reasonable; Ms Elliott's usual workplace is the Mackay Base Hospital where she is required to attend for legitimate reasons including training or changes to operational requirements; Ms Elliott did not have a reasonable excuse for non-compliance with the directive; Vaccine hesitancy or personal preference not to receive a COVID-19 vaccine is not an exceptional circumstance and does not result in compliance with the directive being unreasonable; and Ms Elliott's concerns raised in relation to receiving the vaccine were addressed in Ms Jones' letter of 21 February 2022. ...

 Saliently it comments

[29] The commission has now dealt with a great many appeals of this nature. Consequently, a reliable body of jurisprudence has been developed dealing with increasingly common themes in the arguments advanced by appellants like Ms Elliott, who have not complied with a vaccine mandate applicable in their respective departments of employment. 

[30] Notwithstanding that these decisions are available publicly on the Queensland Courts website, appellants continue to file these appeals challenging the validity of directions for them to be vaccinated and relying on arguments such as 'vaccines are not safe' or 'mandates are coercion' or 'human rights infringements' or 'risk assessments were not provided' or 'consultation did not occur' et cetera. 

[31] It is more than apparent that the vast majority of such appellants have no regard for the reported decisions or if they do, they simply press on, expecting that somehow the outcome will be different in their case. With the exception of a small number of decisions returned to departments for technical inadequacies, no appellant has succeeded on the increasingly tedious suite of arguments of this nature. 

[32] The continued use of the commission's resources to receive and repeatedly dispense with the same arguments cannot be in the public interest. In circumstances where there is now a reliable body of decisions dispensing with similar arguments, it is my view that appellants seeking to reagitate settled arguments should be required to justify why they ought to be heard. 

[33] Ms Elliott was able to provide fulsome submissions in response the department in respect of her appeal. Ms Elliott was further afforded the opportunity pursuant to s 562A to demonstrate that she has an arguable case. 

[34] For the reasons outlined immediately above, I do not intend to descend to a detailed analysis of Ms Elliott's arguments. Suffice to say they traverse many of the now well-travelled and consistently rejected arguments and include submissions that Ms Elliott:

• Did not consent to the alteration of her employment contract; 

• Cannot give valid consent to be vaccinated due to coercion; 

• Presented for vaccination but was refused because she informed the medical practitioners that she was presenting under duress; and 

• Was not provided with a risk assessment.

[35] In addition to these matters, Ms Elliott makes submissions relying on information (apparently extracted from the Fair Work Commission website) and refers to federal legislation regarding coercion (that has no application to her employment). Ms Elliott also seeks to invoke the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) ('HR Act') (although entirely omits any reference or consideration to s 13 of that Act). Ms Elliott also submits that the Directive is 'inconsistent' with industrial instruments and 'Acts'. 

[36] All of these arguments advanced by Ms Elliott are patently wrong. Ms Elliott appears adept at researching information that she considers helpful to her arguments however, none of it is. Assertions about coercion are misconceived. References to federal legislation are irrelevant. Arguments relying on the HR Act are incomplete. 

[37] The fact that she relies on unreliable or irrelevant information does not detract from the fact that she was at least sufficiently skilled to find the information in the first place. Had Ms Elliott applied her research skills to conduct research of the relevant case law, she would have readily appreciated how unmeritorious her arguments are. 

[38] With one exception, all of the arguments advanced by Ms Elliott are (more or less) the same as arguments that have been run (without success) on countless occasions before this commission throughout 2022. There is only one argument made by Ms Elliott that is unique to her circumstances. 

[39] Ms Elliott's role with the department is currently the subject of a temporary flexible work agreement. Ms Elliott has approval to perform her work from home on a full-time basis. For this reason, Ms Elliott argues that she has no reason to enter departmental facilities which, she argues, puts her outside the scope of the directive. As unique as this argument might be, a cursory consideration of it reveals its flaws. 

[40] Ms Elliott's argument in this regard entirely ignores the fact that she remains an employee of the department and therefore she remains subject to any reasonable and lawful direction. Regardless of whether she is currently not required to attend a departmental facility to perform her duties the fact remains that, subject to the appropriate notice, her temporary flexible arrangement could be withdrawn at any time. In the event of this occurring, all of the risks sought to be addressed by the directive would immediately arise if Ms Elliott was unvaccinated. ...

[42] The gravity of the purpose of the directive i.e., to manage the risks associated with transmission of COVID-19 in departmental facilities means that every reasonable step to manage that risk must be taken. This would extend to ensuring that every employee who is or even may be required to attend upon a departmental facility has complied with the directive. 

[43] Ms Elliott's expectation of working from her home indefinitely and without exception is misconceived. As an employee of the department, she remains liable to comply with all lawful and reasonable directions, any number of which might require her to attend at a departmental facility in the foreseeable future. In those circumstances, the only unique feature of her appeal is equally as devoid of merit as the other matters she raises. 

Suspension without renumeration 

[44] With respect to Ms Elliott's appeal against the decision to suspend her without remuneration, here too Ms Elliott fails to have regard to relevant precedents. 

[45] In circumstances where there can be no dispute as to the lawful and reasonable nature of the directive, and where Ms Elliott has openly failed to comply with that directive without reasonable excuse, the termination of her employment might well be a fait accompli. In those circumstances, one can well appreciate how the decision maker would not consider it appropriate to continue remunerating a defiantly recalcitrant employee relying on a collection of misconceived arguments. ... 

[46] Having regard to all of the submissions filed by Ms Elliott in this matter I consider they reveal that the entire appeal is founded on grounds that have already been extensively dealt with by this commission and been consistently rejected or alternatively, Ms Elliott's appeal grounds are misconceived.