Biometric Signature ID’s Dr. Mark Sarver, Chief Behaviorist, headed to OLC Collaborate 2018 in New York for a one day program that focused on challenges in online education. The event brings educators, administrators and online learning professionals together for a discussion on emerging trends and hot technology topics like student authentication alternatives and predictive analytics.
BSI has a large client list of Higher Ed institutions that use its biometric password technology BioSig-ID to authenticate students as they login to the LMS and stop imposters from gaining access. The education regulatory landscape continues to change and now emphasizes the use of advanced authentication techniques well beyond the typed password and PIN. Dr. Sarver attended to network with education professionals and discuss BioSig-ID’s elegant solution to new identity requirements that can impact accreditation if not followed.
OLC Collaborate 2018 featured presentations on topics like the “Shifting Sands in Federal, State, and Accreditation Policies” and “Cyber-Scary or Cyber-Secure: One Institution’s Journey into the Biometric Authentication of Online Students.”
Schools face a number of challenges with online learning due to the anonymous nature of the internet. It’s all too easy for fake students to enroll just to collect financial aid, then drop out once they get the check. Annual loan fraud is well over a billion dollars. Schools deal with abundant academic fraud as well with everything from sites selling term papers to straw students that will take courses to ensure good grades. For years, proctoring exams online has produced mixed results and often uses invasive techniques such as monitoring test takers with their own webcams.
Ultimately schools are tasked with fulfilling increasing regulations such as:
“…. institutions that offer distance education or correspondence education have processes in place through which the institution establishes that the student who registers in a distance education or correspondence education course or program is the same student who participates in and completes the course or program and receives the academic credit.” (Code of Federal Regulations)
Schools must also meet accreditation standards that require the institution assure the integrity of its online learning offerings with measures to ensure academic integrity and reduce cheating. They must also produce evidence of substantive interactions between faculty and students in online courses.
Dr. Sarver was a founder of EduKan, a cooperative provider of online learning in Kansas, and an early adopter of biometric authentication for online learning.