{"id":269349,"date":"2020-09-20T09:13:49","date_gmt":"2020-09-20T13:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=269349"},"modified":"2020-09-20T09:13:49","modified_gmt":"2020-09-20T13:13:49","slug":"online-canadian-citizenship-testing-is-no-quick-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/09\/20\/online-canadian-citizenship-testing-is-no-quick-fix\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Canadian citizenship testing is no quick fix"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The pandemic has elevated the need for online testing. (File photo: Christin Hume\/Unsplash)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ANALYSIS: The problem with offering citizenship tests online and the problem of having none at all.
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With citizenship tests suspended as part of Canada\u2019s coronavirus response, tens of thousands of would-be Canadians are blocked from getting a passport and the right to vote.<\/span><\/p>\n

About 85,000 people are waiting to take the citizenship test, according to the immigration department\u2019s data from September 7. Permanent residents need to take the test in order to get Canadian citizenship, which gives them the same privileges that Canadian-born citizens enjoy. Citizenship status is also a\u00a0symbolic gesture for many immigrants<\/a>\u00a0that means they are now a part of the Canadian family.<\/p>\n

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada<\/a>\u00a0(IRCC) said they are looking into offering online citizenship tests and interviews, but they have to consider how they would verify the identities of people taking the test and uphold the integrity of the program. They did not provide\u00a0CIC News<\/em>\u00a0with a timeline for when this will happen, but recently announced that certain applicants will be\u00a0called to do in-person retests<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The challenge of integrity with online testing<\/h3>\n

The pandemic has elevated the need for online testing. Canadian post-secondary institutions are coming up with various solutions such as changing the curriculum to allow open-book tests. They may use testing software that implements different measures that make it harder to cheat, like imposing time limits on tests, or making it impossible to open another tab without locking down the test. Some have also opted for artificial intelligence such as ProctorU, which was created to address the issue of integrity in online testing.<\/p>\n

Using artificial intelligence as proctors has been an idea in the making long before the pandemic. Duolingo, for example, has been developing their AI proctor for about five years to allow test-takers to complete their language tests from anywhere at any time.<\/p>\n

The Duolingo Language Test records students during the testing session. The video is then uploaded to artificial intelligence software that detects any suspicious behaviour or broken rules. The information collected from the AI then goes to in-house workers who review the videos to make sure the AI has not made any mistakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have two humans who go through the entirety of the video\u2026 to make sure that the artificial intelligence has not unduly hurt a student by saying, \u2018there\u2019s noise here that must mean somebody else is in the room,\u2019\u201d said Sam Fleishman, Duolingo\u2019s English test international engagement manager, \u201cThe human proctors pick up that, [it] was actually just kids walking up the staircase.\u201d<\/p>\n

The test results are acceptable for students to use for admission to certain Canadian universities. Fleishman said it took years to develop the AI proctor and says Duolingo is still working to improve the technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur mission is to make sure that testing is more accessible through assessment technology and that\u2019s why we spent so much time making sure that this proprietary work is solid and good,\u201d Fleishman said. \u201cThat\u2019s a big investment for universities or governments to take on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Numbers of new citizens significantly reduced from 2019<\/h3>\n

IRCC cancelled all citizenship tests, re-tests, interviews and ceremonies on March 14, in response to the COVID-19 situation.\u00a0Virtual citizenship ceremonies<\/a>\u00a0have since resumed, however, the 2,500 to 3,000 citizenship oaths they are now per week is still down from 2019 when they were processing about 4,700 citizenship oaths per week<\/p>\n

Andrew Griffith, political commentator and former director general of Citizenship and Multiculturalism, calls the delay in testing \u201cunderstandable\u201d given the infrastructure required to make online testing available. But, he questions the low number of virtual ceremonies that IRCC has conducted since the pandemic hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have less sympathy in terms of the number of virtual ceremonies because I think Australia proved it could be done on a larger scale,\u201d Griffith told\u00a0CIC News<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Australia has conducted about\u00a080,000 online ceremonies since March<\/a>\u00a0whereas Canada has only held about 7,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time [citizenship applicants] get to the ceremony it\u2019s basically a rubber stamp exercise because all the security checks have been done, they do the test and then they can take the oath,\u201d Griffith said. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty streamlined process at that point in time.\u201d<\/p>\n

IRCC will start offering some\u00a0in-person services on September 21<\/a>, including citizenship re-testing in Vancouver. They will monitor the results to see if more services can be offered in-person in the future.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANALYSIS: The problem with offering citizenship tests online and the problem of having none at all. With citizenship tests suspended …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":269350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-immigration","mauthors-shelby-thevenot","mauthors-cic-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269351,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269349\/revisions\/269351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}