<\/p>\n
In the 2002 film Minority Report<\/em> biometric identity tests, in the form of retina scanning techniques, are commonplace as a means of personal identification.\u00a0Biometric tests may have once been the\u00a0work of science fiction, but they are now a feature of international border control and, it would appear, entering the lecture theatre.<\/p>\n Students at Newcastle University recently voted to oppose <\/a>a University proposal to use biometrics in attendance monitoring.\u00a0Newcastle\u00a0has so far used sign-in sheets to record student attendance, but is looking into other methods like\u00a0finger-print readers.<\/p>\n All universities monitor the attendance of their students, due in part to a need to meet the requirements of the UK Border Agency to monitor the attendance of international students, and also due to a desire in some institutions to encourage greater student engagement with their studies.<\/p>\n The literature available on the relationship between student attendance and attainment\u00a0is inconsistent. Nevertheless, there is some empirical evidence (for example see here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>) to suggest a positive correlation between attendance and academic performance.<\/p>\n But why use biometric testing? The use of technology is hopefully more efficient than the traditional paper-based register, but there\u2019s also the benefit of validity: it\u2019s difficult for students to \u2018sign in\u2019 for fellow students when a biometric test is used. For that reason some institutions are also considering introducing biometric tests to monitor exam attendance.<\/p>\n In Minority Report<\/em> the main character changes his official identity by having his eyes transplanted, and later accesses a security system using one of the removed eyes. How long before an enterprising student takes on the challenge to overcome biometric attendance monitoring?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the 2002 film Minority Report biometric identity tests, in the form of retina scanning techniques, are commonplace as a means of personal identification.\u00a0Biometric tests may have once been the\u00a0work of science fiction, but they are now a feature of international border control and, it would appear, entering the lecture theatre. Students at NewcastleRead more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assessment-and-feedback","category-he-trends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/teaching-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/teaching-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/teaching-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/teaching-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/teaching-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/teaching-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/teaching-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/teaching-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/teaching-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}