Learn about technology assessment by working in your assigned team and performing an assessment of technology, as directed by the fictitious Technology Assessment Report Contract Award Letter below. Please format your report of this technology assessment for the World Wide Web, making good use of its features (e.g., hyperlinks). When the final report has been published, send the instructor an Email identifying the report's Web address and authorship.

Technology Assessment Report Contract Award

(Note: This is a fictitious letter written for instructional purposes.)

Dear Madam or Sir:

This letter formalizes the award of a [fictitious] contract between the United States Senate Subcommittee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and your company for the production of a technology assessment report to be made available online no later than 11 pm EST on Friday, April 23^rd, 2004. We have requested your group provide us with an objective and well-researched technology assessment titled:

"The Use of Biometrics in Education"

The use of biometrics to aid in the identification of individuals (or in the verification of their identities) has received increased attention in light of the heightened security precautions in the United States since the attacks of September 11th, 2001. A technology assessment of "Using Biometrics for Border Security" was produced by the US General Accounting Office in 2002.

The US Senate Subcommittee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions has received inquiries regarding the possible use of biometrics in educational settings. We intend to craft legislation on this area, but we would like to gain a better understanding of the background about the technologies, and the options available to us, along with estimates of the associated benefits and costs, both from economic and non-economic vantages.

Identity theft seems to be a growing threat, and we feel it necessary to help safeguard the security of student identities and ensure the validity of identification methods used with students. The growth of distance education, specifically in online education, raises serious issues regarding student identity.

For example, the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (an accrediting body for many universities) has identified "Best Practices for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs." Among these is the following standard:

"5b. When examinations are employed (paper, online, demonstrations of competency, etc.), they take place in circumstances that include firm student identification. The institution otherwise seeks to assure the integrity of student work." (p. 13)

One Senator mentioned that tests for certification could not be administered in an online program because there was no way to ensure the identity of the individual; another disagreed, noting that a variety of technologies could be used, though none may commonly be in place. He noted the thumbprint scanner on his personal digital assistant, commenting that this could be of benefit in educational settings where identification might be difficult. Webcams, voice prints, and even retinal scans and DNA were also mentioned by this Senator, though he admitted that he did not have any special, technical knowledge of developments in biometric technologies.

In addition to issues regarding distance education, the notion of identity during face-to-face testing was raised by a Subcommittee member. She claimed that identity verification technologies could greatly aid in giving tests in large, lecture classes that may have 250 undergraduates or more.

Another colleague took an interest in secondary school classes and suggested that they could use technology to automatically take attendance. (Just saving 2 minutes out of each 45-minute class would seem to result in increasing academic learning time by over four percent, which would be the equivalent of adding over 8 school days.) He mentioned the use of card scanners and automated card readers, though, not biometrics.

However, secondary schools and universities are under increasing pressure to be fiscally responsible, and expenditures must be justified in terms of the benefits they produce. Furthermore, the use of biometrics in education raises some ethical considerations, and one Senator in particular sees this as an invasion of both a student's and a teacher's privacy. Another Senator has said that the US Senate should not be involved in this issue.

As you can see, we need your help. We need the facts about these technologies. What are the different technologies that are available? How do they work? What do they cost? How are they used? How would an institution have to adapt to their use? What potential hazards might these systems introduce? A lengthy section that explains and illustrates the technologies would be much appreciated. Links and reference citations to sources of additional information would also be helpful.

Second, we would like you to elaborate on alternative policy options for the Subcommittee. We propose legislation. That is our key role. Therefore, we want your report to inform us as we discuss whether to draft legislation on this issue, and what that legislation would be. What are our best legislative options? I would hope that our legislation would take into account both higher education and secondary/primary education, with special consideration for distance education. One policy option we would consider is a "do-nothing option." While your report might mention this for reasons of comparison, please select other alternatives for us to consider as the options you present. Please determine the number of options you present by counting the number of authors on your team. Furthermore, we ask that each option have a different primary or lead author, and that his or her name appears under the chapter title that describes that option.

The options you present should be alternative courses of action. Each of the policy options you present should be reasonable, and supported with evidence and citations from reputable sources. A clear accounting of projected economic costs and economic benefits should be included with each, however, it might be the non-economic costs and benefits that are of more use to us.

Our Subcommittee is accustomed to technology assessment reports from the US Office of Technology Assessment, so please model your report after OTA reports. Of course, since it is a Web-based report, we would expect your report to make appropriate use of hyperlinks, graphics, etc., as needed. Also, please cite sources throughout the document and list references as indicated in the current American Psychological Association Publication Manual, but we do not expect you to follow their conventions for line spacing, etc.

When your final report is posted on the Internet, please send an Email to my representative, J. Flowers, indicating the location and authorship of this report. (Dr. Flowers also noted that each author would be sending him a reflection paper, whatever that means.)

(Note: This is a fictitious letter written for instructional purposes.)
 

Sincerely, Judd Gregg, Chair Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions of the United States Senate http://labor.senate.gov/

Judd Gregg, Image from labor.senate.gov

Evaluation:

Your learning in this Technology Assessment activity will be assessed by the instructor, and counts for 100 points. Half of that will be taken from an individual grade and half from a common group grade.

The group grade will be determined by an evaluation of the final product. It will be compared with other student technology assessment reports (both within our class and from other sources) and with professional technology assessment reports. In addition, the grader will consider evidence relating to the process of preparing this report. For example, if a certain economic assessment was made, but a later decision kept it out of the final document, the group will receive the recognition it deserves for having performed that assessment and then deciding not to include it, as evidenced in the group forum. In the event that teams have different numbers of members, the grader will attempt to apply standards that take into account group size. Among the criteria used in determining the group grade are the following:

• Adequacy of research
  • sufficient citations
  • many reputable sources
  • depth of background information provided
• Adequate and appropriate use of technology assessment techniques
• Logic
  • Are inferences well-founded in facts?
  • Are the arguments strong and valid?
  • Is the document free of internal contradictions?
  • Are external contradictions adequately dealt with?
  • Have impacts sufficiently been discussed?
• Writing
  • proper use of grammar, logic, spelling, and punctuation
  • logical organization of the report into sections and sub-sections, with appropriate headings
  • formal use of language, free of contractions, colloquialisms, first and second person, redundancy, authors' opinions, and flowery language
  • proper and effective use of HTML
• Overall Quality
  • How well does the report provide the client what had been requested?

The individual grade will be determined by the instructor after examining a report submitted by each team member that identifies in detail their contributions to the team's technology assessment and reflects on the learning involved in this activity (the "Individual Account and Reflection" report.) It should be clear from the "individual account" section of this document which areas of the report were written by the individual, what assistance was provided with areas authored by others, and what other tasks were accomplished by the individual, even though they might not be evident in the report. In a later section of this document, the individual should reflect on what was learned in this activity, including what was learned about the subject of the assessment and about the processes of technology assessment. This reflection should be honest and accurate. However, evidence of learning will be a criterion in its evaluation. The Email should have the subject line: TA Account & Reflection and should be sent to the instructor at jcflowers1@bsu.edu . The body of the Email message should be used for the account and reflection, rather than attaching a document.