Harvard University has admitted to photographing without permission 2,000 students since spring 2013 to measure attendance levels.  The revelation came during questioning at a faculty meeting of Peter Bol, Harvard’s vice provost for advances in learning, by the computer science professor Harry Lewis after he learned that the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (Hilt) had secretly installed the cameras as part of a study.  “Just because technology can be used to answer a question doesn’t mean that it should be,” Lewis told the Harvard student newspaper the Crimson. “And if you watch people electronically and don’t tell them ahead of time, you should tell them afterwards.”  “We did not want to bias the sample. We did not want individual students to be tracked or in any way identified. And we did not want the results to be used for the purpose of evaluating the teachers,” said Bol in response to Lewis’s questioning transcribed by the Harvard magazine. “We wanted to know if we could get valid evidence on attendance, and we wanted to see if there were any patterns in the data that might support conclusions about whether or not we should care.”  The study has raised concerns of violation of privacy from both students and faculty members. The cameras were installed for the spring of 2013 without informing students that they were being photographed every minute during lectures.  “The images were processed through a program that counted whether seats were empty or filled. The quantities were calculated for each lecture. Once the data were in hand, I made appointments, beginning in August, with course heads (two are still outstanding) to tell them what had been done and to show them generalised numerical data on their respective classes,” said Bol in a statement.  Findings from the study were unveiled in September at an academic conference held by Hilt. The study was approved by the US federally mandated Institutional Review Board, which assesses research and determined that the study “did not constitute human subjects research” and therefore did not require prior permission from those captured by the study. The photographs from the study were destroyed, according to Bol.  The Harvard President, Drew Faust, promised that all students and faculties captured during the study would be informed and that an oversight committee, which was established in spring 2013 after revelations of mass email surveillance at the University, would be informed.  “I indeed do take very seriously the important questions that this incident raises,” said Faust. “I wish to submit this incident for comment and exploration. I think that was what the committee was set up to do.”  Students and staff hit out at the study with one Harvard professor, Peter Burgard, calling it “Orwellian” in nature and querying how it did not qualifying as “spying”.  “It’s just another instance of contradiction when we have a University that’s pushing and pushing and pushing the implementation of an honour code that requires students to attest to their honour and integrity, yet here we have yet another example of the University engaging in activities in which it’s not being forthright, it’s being secretive, and it’s withholding information from students and professors that could potentially be used against them,” said Brett Biebelberg, a Harvard undergraduate council representative and chair of the council rules committee.  • Facebook emotion study breached ethical guidelines, researchers say
Photos of 2,000 students across 10 lecture halls were taken as part of an experiment to measure classroom attendance. By Samuel Gibbs