As Opposed to the Old Technology Called 'Exams'

“New technology allows professors to track whether students are reading their textbooks,” the Houston Chronicle reports:

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This semester, thousands of college students around the country, including dozens at a Texas A&M University campus, won’t be able to hide their studying habits from the prying eyes of their professors.

With the new platform CourseSmart Analytics, professors are able to see the students’ level of engagement – how much of digital texts students have read, whether they highlight passages or took notes and how much time they spent on their readings.

A beta version of CourseSmart is being tested at several universities during the spring semester serving about 4,000 students, and officials hope to roll it out fully by the fall, said spokeswoman Cindy Clark. The goal is to move away from traditional textbooks and methods and help give faculty an insight into their students’ behaviors, she said.

“Only about 55 percent of college students graduate within six years,” Clark said. “This illustrates the demand within higher education for a tool that would help students be more successful in their studies and graduate on time.”

The system works through a dashboard that tracks the students’ progress in the texts. An “engagement index” aggregates data points and an instructor can evaluate the material and intervene early with students that appear to be struggling, she said.

The pilot programs are helping CourseSmart get feedback, so that they can improve upon the tools. For example, the company is considering allowing students to see their own metrics and not just the professor as originally planned. Clark said the pilot program will also help the company determine if any particular discipline benefits more from the technology than others.

CourseSmart carries more than 90 percent of core textbooks and works through the universities’ administration learning management systems, Clark said. Students have the option to opt out, but none in the trial period decided not to participate.

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When exactly did 1984 become a how-guide for the left? (Probably as soon as it was published, come to think of it.)

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