Cluttered away in Congress is a 1200 page bill with a small paragraph that could create yet another revolution. According to this bill, online learning can be made more reliable by requiring online institutions to place spy cameras in the residences of their online students. This paragraph is actually meant for putting a stop to cheating in online education. The requirement has been put down for institutions to prove that students acquiring online degree are the same people who actually do the coursework and not others filling in on their programs.

Some institutions have already been asked to use technologies like fingerprints, webcams or keystroke records to validate online test takers. These requirements have brought about mixed feelings. On one hand, there are online colleges and universities that believe these technologies have advantages for students as they would authenticate and add value to the worth of their online degrees, while on the other hand there are online institutions which believe that this is a definite invasion of students’ privacy. The base of this argument is that the technologies being implemented are operated by third-party vendors who would collect the finger prints of the students and probably pictures of the insides of their homes as well which might lead to some other scam.

“This is taking a step into a student’s private life,” said Rhonda M. Epper, co-executive director of Colorado Community Colleges Online. “I don’t know if we want to extend our presence that far.”

A common perception here is that online colleges and universities might feel that they are being forced to imply particular examination methods which might be too costly for them to cover in their budgets. Another general apprehension is that this law suggests that cheating is much more prevalent in online students as compared to traditional students as the presence and reliability of eLearning cannot be validated.

Until now there have been no reports of an objection to this provision, so there are high chances of that it will become a part of the law by fall thus making online education yet more authentic and better.