Quizlet Sells Ads, Has Athlete Ambassador(s)
Plus, Course Hero says tech companies should listen to teachers, just not about cheating. Plus, personal news and notes.
Issue 123
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Quizlet Sells Ads, Has Athlete “Ambassador”
Of the terrible troika of cheating companies, Quizlet escapes attention the most. That’s probably because Chegg and Course Hero are so active publicly and because Quizlet’s customer base skews younger.
Nonetheless, two items from Quizlet surfaced recently.
The first was that back in April, Quizlet announced it was going to sell ads on its “education” platform.
I did not read that article because it requires a subscription. The subhead says Quizlet claims 60 million active monthly users, just in case you’d forgotten how massive these companies are.
Two quick notes about this development. One is that any ad platform whose primary audience is kids should necessitate constant scrutiny - especially one that’s frequently used to share information outside the view of adults.
The other is that ads and education don’t usually go together. Few - if any - real education companies sell ads. That’s probably because companies that are actually in business to help people learn, don’t want to get confused as to whether they’re selling knowledge and skills or their students. Sorry, I mean customers.
The second newsy Quizlet item was this otherwise unremarkable press release about a survey the company put together on student mental health. It’s notable because it demonstrates yet again how eager cheating companies are to position themselves as student support tools that alleviate student stress.
But it’s a quote that really caught my attention. It features the:
need to balance academics, sports, personal time, hobbies and a social life, which can feel like a lot to handle at once
It’s from someone identified as:
UCLA gymnast and Quizlet college ambassador Kalyany Steele.
Steele is a member of the UCLA gymnastics team and, apparently, an ambassador for Quizlet. I don’t know if Steele is paid to represent a cheating company or if she’s the only one, but I do know that other cheating companies are paying college athletes for endorsement deals (see Issue 111). And I do know that they hire students to be “campus reps” (see Issue 103).
Course Hero Executive Says Education Companies “Must Listen to Educators,” But Not About Cheating
Sean Michael Morris, with whom the education press seems oddly obsessed, is Vice President, Academics at Course Hero.
Morris, you may remember, opposed academic integrity tools such as plagiarism detection and test proctoring (see Issue 90) and supposedly recently and conveniently said out loud that he, “didn’t like the idea of assigning blame to specific entities as to why or how students cheat,” (see Issue 102).
Anyway, the folks over at Higher Ed Dive gave Morris space to share his views on - I’m not entirely sure what, actually. I guess it’s that, as he put it:
ed tech presumes to understand teaching better than teachers do, and it neglects to listen to educators about how learning actually happens.
Go ahead and take a wild guess as to which “ed tech” services Morris singles out for this criticism. Go ahead, guess.
From the entire ocean of “ed tech,” Morris picks these examples where companies presume to know more than teachers about how learning happens:
from plagiarism and cheating to communicating with students and monitoring their progress.
Morris says the integrity technology is not listening - because if there’s one thing I hear every day it’s how teachers really wish their students plagiarized and cheated more often. And that’s right - Morris put cheating and plagiarism on the side of “how learning actually happens.”
Lest you think I quoted Mr. Morris out of context or inaccurately, here are those two sentences in order and complete:
The pitch is that ed tech offers solutions to problems that teachers face, from plagiarism and cheating to communicating with students and monitoring their progress. But more often than not, ed tech presumes to understand teaching better than teachers do, and it neglects to listen to educators about how learning actually happens.
So, Morris and Course Hero say that “ed tech offers solutions to problems” such as “plagiarism and cheating” but “neglects to listen to educators about how learning actually happens.” Which, we are left to infer, is by plagiarizing and cheating.
Morris continues:
If ed tech is truly interested in the success of students, the industry must hear what faculty have to say.
Personally, I’ve heard plenty of faculty say that they wished Course Hero would stop helping students cheat. I’ve also heard them say they’re not fond of Course Hero selling their intellectual property without permission, or even notice. I know at least one professor who is not happy that Course Hero refuses to cooperate with academic misconduct inquiries (see Issue 102).
So, I have to agree with Morris. We should take from this that Course Hero is not “truly interested in the success of students.”
I could go on, but there’s no point. Morris’s convenient platitudes about listening to teachers clearly don’t apply to his employer or to the subject of academic integrity. Remember, just weeks ago Morris essentially told an industry paper that, when it comes to cheating, it’s the teachers who need to listen to (his) businesses (see Issue 116):
Morris said that educators can struggle to accept a business model that puts students in control
And that:
he also hopes to work with educators to build a more nuanced understanding of cheating
On cheating, it’s the educators who “struggle to accept” things and should work to “build a more nuanced understanding.”
In other words, it’s not our technology that’s a problem or disconnected from “how learning actually happens,” you need to accept what we’re doing and understand it better. It’s the other guys - the guys who want to stop cheating - they’re the bad ones, they don’t get it.
I got it.
Personal News and Notes
I’ve accepted an invite to (unfortunately, remotely) join a panel at the 2022 Conference of the e-Assessment Association on June 21. The topic is, “The Future of Remote Invigilation and Online Proctoring” and I’ll be joined by:
Patrick Craven, Director of Policy & Strategic Partnerships, City and Guilds
Jarret Dyer, Test Center Administrator, College of DuPage
Eunice McAllister, Account Director, PSI Services and
Paul Muir, Head of Technology Enabled Assessment, British Council
The panel will be hosted by Romana Moss, Director, Royal College of Emergency Medicine.
Also, you may be aware that the International Center for Academic Integrity (ICAI) regularly publishes and shares written material on the topic. Their e-mail that arrived yesterday morning featured a piece from Sally Carter on ID and, surprisingly, featured “The Cheat Sheet.”
Carter wrote:
Ringers taking tests for others in both live and virtual settings has been reported for large-scale standardized exams and college classes alike. Recently, Derek Newton in The Cheat Sheet reported two high school cheating scandals (Issue 120), one of which was involved impersonation.
That is true and we did indeed.