Dear students,
I am writing in hopes to allay some concerns around the new
online proctoring software that will be used by Endeavour for online exams from
June 2020.
It is a requirement at all times that we maintain the academic integrity of our courses, including that assessments assure us that students are sufficiently competent in all of the stated learning outcomes for each subject, and will eventually be safe practitioners in their chosen careers. In order to do this, we are required by the higher education regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) to ensure that we use a variety of assessment methods including closed-book individual examinations.
In order to ensure the continued safety of students and staff in this current uncertain environment, Endeavour began immediate investigations into online proctoring software (including the key feature of browser lockdown) when it became apparent that our College would be required to shut down in March 2020. Various options were considered and discarded before all members of the Senior Leadership Team and Project Team were happy with the final decision. This decision was acted upon and students informed of it as soon as it was confirmed that we would not be returning to campus until July 2020.
What about your data security?
We are aware that there has been some media attention in recent weeks around universities using various software solutions to find the best option for online exams in these unusual times. We are also aware that you are concerned about your privacy when introducing new software onto your personal devices; as you should be. We are, in fact, proud that we have students who take these matters seriously, as we do. I wish to confirm with you that we have investigated the negative media around these matters and found that the Respondus software was not part of those media concerns and in fact every concern raised by the media is alleviated by the Respondus software. In addition, we have reviewed the Respondus privacy policy and terms, and find them to align with the requirements of the Australian Privacy Principles, as required by Principle 8 (cross-border disclosure of personal information). In particular, Respondus’ alignment with Principle 3 (collection of solicited personal information) and Principle 11 (security of personal information) were key to the College entering into a licensing agreement with them. Respondus’ privacy policy also ensures that no information shared with them will be passed on to any party other than Endeavour, the licensee of the software.
Please note that this software is ONLY required for you to complete your exams. You are welcome to delete it from your personal device as soon as your exam has been completed – we will provide instructions on how to uninstall it from your computer (also note that you can install it and uninstall it as many times as you need for different exams).
How long will your data be held, and where?
Respondus holds all electronic data collected by its software in a secure cloud-based environment which is regularly security checked using ‘third party penetration testing’. Under Australian record retention requirements, we are required to hold your actual examinations for 6 – 12 months. Because of this requirement, our own policy states that we will hold completed examination papers for 12 months, after which time they are destroyed securely. Respondus’ current policy meets the US requirements to hold examination answers for up to 5 years. As part of our licencing agreement with Respondus we requested this holding time to be reduced to 12 months to align with our policy, which they have agreed to.
Respondus records and saves video of the student sitting exam for monitoring purposes; this is considered the ‘completed exam paper’ for our record retention purposes. It highlights still images which are accessible by the relevant academic staff member only (marker), where it has marked a possible concern around academic integrity (e.g. that you may be looking at a book). The staff member can click on these images (which are part of the video) and it will play video from that point onwards to track integrity issues. These recordings are held at Respondus servers and kept for 1 Year as part of our request in alignment with our record retention requirements.
How are other universities solving this problem?
Some of you have raised concerns that ‘no universities in Australia are using this software’. This is untrue and we are aware that Respondus is currently being used by Monash University, James Cook University, University of Tasmania and University of Adelaide and has been for some time.
What does this mean for my exams?
The College’s plan is to conduct all ‘backlog’ exams for online cohorts which have already completed coursework in the first week of June, and for the March and Semester 1 cohorts in mid – late June, so that all exams are completed prior to the start of the on-campus practical and clinic blocks. We are aware that some of you would prefer to come to campus, however due to all of the scheduling changes because of COVID-19, this is not going to be possible for this semester. Due to the requirement for national consistency and integrity of exams, we must have a national approach to ensure students on all campuses have equality of experience, and given States are relaxing restrictions at different times, the introduction of such software is the only way we can assure this equality.
We also understand that some of you are concerned around finding the privacy within your home to conduct the examination within the required timeframes. This is something that we also completely understand, particularly as most of us are also trying to work from home with children at the moment. Unfortunately, this is something that we cannot provide a solution for; we must lock down a specific timeframe for exams in order to protect the academic integrity of the exams themselves, and this would be the case if the exams were held on campus also. However, given the exam timetable will be released with 4 – 6 weeks’ notice, we would hope that you would be able to arrange this block of time to be set aside without interruption, as you would if you were required to attend campus.
Of course we know there are those of you who just will not be able to do your exams in this way due to special circumstances; if that is the case, please lodge a special circumstances application as per usual process to request a deferred exam via another delivery method. Based on student feedback the College is also continuing to develop and expand the Examination FAQ’s section on the website; click here.
Thank you
I truly do understand that this is yet another change in this difficult time that puts strain on your studies. We are trying hard to do all we can to continue to help you progress through your studies without any loss of study time, while still maintaining the requirements of the regulatory and professional bodies for our students and graduates. It is a fine line in this time when the environment is changing from week to week, and we do thank you for your patience and acceptance of all of these updates. Please know that everything we are doing right now is to ensure that you can continue your studies as uninterrupted as possible, and to improve our academic support in this new environment.
The whole Senior Leadership Team is working daily to ensure that our students remain the focus of all of our activities in this pandemic period, and I want to assure you that no decision is made lightly.
Regards,
Elissa Holswich
National Quality, Governance & Compliance Manager
Brisbane campus