RECENT FEDERAL COURT DECISION

A student from Cleveland State University argued that requiring students to conduct a room scan prior to taking a test online violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Room scans are often part of proctoring services for online exam monitoring. In August, 2022, a federal district court judge agreed and, as such, room scans have been ruled unconstitutional.

It means that if you offer or provide remote testing in any of your courses, you cannot ask students to scan their rooms prior to taking the exam. If this has been something you have been doing for remote testing, you must stop.

To be clear, offering remote testing is not prohibited. It is only the room scan requirement that has been ruled unconstitutional. If you are a user of Respondus Monitor for your remote testing offerings, you may continue to use that. Respondus Monitor is UVM’s centrally-supported system for remote “proctoring”. With this new ruling, Respondus is reviewing their pre-exam steps to determine what options and/or resources can be developed so that institutions, such as UVM, can be confident in their compliance with the law.

The Chronicle of Higher Education and NPR both ran articles this summer regarding this ruling. While it may be challenged, until then, we can no longer require, or even ask, students to scan their rooms prior to taking an exam remotely.

If you have any questions about this PRIVACYMATTERS, contact the Chief Privacy Officer. If you have questions about remote testing options, contact the Center for Teaching and Learning.