Pearson is apparently monitoring social media, to detect signs of cheating during exams. That’s insanely creepy, and a horrible violation.
“And for those who think "Well, its Twitter, its public", remember this: So is walking down the street. But is it OK for the government to monitor us with street surveillance cameras and send us fines for not crossing with the crosswalk?”
I’m going to go on record with this: I will do everything I can to prevent this kind of surveillance culture at my university. Thankfully, we have a highly student-centric administration, and I can’t imagine something like this taking hold on our campus. But, we have recurring requests from instructors for TurnItIn or similar tools, which I see as the thin edge of the wedge leading to Pearson and Tracx. (their whitepaper bragging about this stuff is down, and a version of that whitepaper archived in 2014 only mentions staff use of social media)
With Pearson pushing into the LMS with textbook integrations (and now, SIS integration as well), this stuff makes me really nervous. This takes Creepy Treehouse to a whole new level.