Policy on Identity Verification

Purpose

This policy describes the Student Identity Verification in Distance and Correspondence Education in compliance with US Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education Regulation 34 CFR 602.17(g) and the Higher Education Opportunity Act, specifically Public Law 110-35, stipulating that accrediting agencies require postsecondary institutions that “offer distance education or correspondence education to have processes through which the institution establishes that the student who registers in a distance education or correspondence education course or program is the same student who participates in and completes the program and receives the academic credit.”

Policy

Overview

Like many of our peer institutions, there are a number of courses and programs at SUNY Downstate which utilize an online or mixed-methods approach to student learning. As a matter of policy, on an annual or semester basis (depending on how each individual school or college submits their course information), the Office of the Registrar obtains information from each course instructor as to whether their course is a distance learning course or has components that use distance learning.

SUNY Downstate policies and procedures for addressing identity verification of online students is an integral part of its policies on academic integrity. Individual school policies on academic integrity defines cheating, plagiarism, and forgery and delineates the consequences of violating the policy. Submitting another student’s work or having another individual complete assignments, assessment, or tests in either online or seated courses is a violation of the academic integrity policy.

At the present time, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University offers programs that are available, in part or in their entirety, offered by distance learning in the School of Public Health, the College of Nursing, and the School of Health Professions. The current model of instruction tends to be a course utilizing online materials, discussion boards, drop-boxes for assignment submission and other electronic formats available through our Course/Learning Management System. In some cases, courses are offered in a hybrid methodology where some parts are offered online and other parts of the course are taught in a traditional manner (e.g. classroom/lab), which serves to verify the confirmation of the identity of the student in the course.

Methods used to ensure Student Identity Verification

Along with submitting applications that include identifying data, students matriculating into the Colleges of Medicine and Nursing, and the Schools of Health Professions, Public Health and Graduate Studies must complete a background check to further verify their identity. SUNY Downstate has a few non-matriculating students, primarily in the School of Public Health, who are required to submit information such as Government-issued Driver’s License, Identification Card or Passport along with their application.

Access is then provided to students upon acceptance using their assigned downstate.edu email address and secure password. This secure login is a student’s only means of access to the learning management system (LMS) and the remote testing/evaluation system (if applicable). Students are registered in their online courses through Banner, which imports the registration information directly into the LMS without any action on the part of students, faculty, or staff beyond the regular registration process.  Only duly registered students and the instructor of record appear on the roster of any online course. Furthermore, every action within a course site registers on the extensive tracking features of the LMS, which track each user in terms of time and duration of the action and part of the site involved, even if there is no posting by the student. Students taking exams using our remote examination software are photographed and recorded during the examination for the purposes of identity verification.

Supplementing these technical means of verifying student identity and activity are high degrees of student and faculty interaction that characterize typical online instruction. Students introduce themselves during class discussions online, and often write multiple posts weekly, including responses to one another as well to the instructor’s assignments and discussion questions. Students may also maintain class chats, written journals, blogs and/or wikis individually or in group work and may complete other assigned papers and assignments. Such interactivity creates a high degree of familiarity between the faculty member and student within each course. Other tools used include, but are not limited to:

• • • the use of e-portfolios
    • the use of student photos and/or videos during classes or discussions
    • work in groups and teams
    • plagiarism checkers (to ensure work submitted by the student is the student's own)
    • synchronous ("real-time") conferencing (by both voice and video); and
    • asynchronous conferencing (by both voice and video)

Not all of these tools and practices are included in all online courses.

In all cases, the means of ensuring the verifiability of student identity in online instruction meet or exceed those used in in-person instruction.

Methods used to ensure Student Privacy

Student records are kept within our Student Information system (Banner), which utilizes secure sockets layer communication (SSL) and is accessible only on campus or from off campus via VPN (Virtual Private Network).  Staff are provisioned with accounts that provide access to information they need. Issues such as provisioning other access to information is vetted through the Banner Team Leader’s Committee.

Students have access to their own records through Banner Self Service and can view some grading information in the Learning Management System (LMS). Students can change passwords online through the email system or via a request to the Information Services Helpdesk.

Notification regarding extra costs related to Identity Verification (such as proctoring)

College of Medicine students pay for the Background check via a service provided by AMCAS and the results are included in the application submission to SUNY Downstate. Other students are informed of the process to acquire background checks as part of their application package. We do not currently ask students to incur any other costs related to this area.

Written procedures indicating offices responsible for the consistent application of Identity Verification

The offices of Student Affairs, Admissions, Educational Computing, Information Security and the Information Services Helpdesk are responsible for the consistent application of Identity Verification. Representatives from the offices meet on a regular basis, as needed, to review and look for improvement the processes as both policy and technology changes.

 

Last Updated: July, 2024