Using behavioral biometrics for online IDs
institutions all over the country. Everyone’s looking for a solution that can be easy, low cost, highly scalable.”
University seeks out solution
When Maynard reached out to UMUC proposing the product, the school was already reviewing the market for authentication technology.
Within weeks, he was in Maryland presenting the technology to the university’s president, deans and administrators and Matthew Prineas, assistant to the provost, who helped organize the meetings. A pilot was scheduled for the 2009 summer session.
The university had conducted pilots with other forms of ID technology, but this one was different in that it wasn’t limited to a single class, Prineas says. About 160 students, who were scheduled to take their final exam at one of the university’s regional testing centers, received an e-mail invitation to participate. Of those thirty signed on.
The test was to be administered by a human proctor, and the students were from all different classes. Before the summer semester began, BSI set up a Web site customized for the pilot. Participants were asked to go online, enroll in the system and provide information specific to their personal behaviors to help build a profile, creating three layers of security to access the system.
To get them in the habit of remembering their logon information, students received e-mails asking them to verify their profile information several times at various points prior to the exam date.
The BioSigID system collected nearly thirty behaviors per student in the month before the exam date. The day of the exam, students were asked to come in thirty minutes ahead of time to authenticate their ID before testing began. Most were able to do so the within about one minute.
High marks with students
Some 93 percent of student participants rated the system as “extremely or very convenient,” and 97 percent recommended that BioSig-ID be used for student identity verification.
Giusti writes that UMUC had a few concerns going into the pilot. One, they wanted to know whether the ID process would be onerous or take a long time. “It was quite successful in that regard,” Prineas says. “All of the students finished very quickly.”
Only one student was unable to verify her identity using BioSigID when she got to the exam, Prineas says, adding that the student was still allowed to take the exam. The problem turned out to be a case of user error, as opposed to a security breach.
“We found out that one student had pretty much ignored the e-mails during the semester asking her to go in and verify her ID,” Prineas says, nothing that this highlighted the fact that the more the technology is used, the more effective it is, Prineas says.
UMUC had originally talked about putting out a request for proposals for an electronic proctoring solution that would include monitoring students with a Web cam. Those plans are now on hold. “We’re reevaluating. That’s one of the results of the pilots we’ve done,” Prineas says.
Maynard says the cost of the system is competitive because the user does not have to buy hardware. Other student authentication systems rely on Web cams, which can range anywhere from $22 to $150 per student for the hardware and related costs.
Tacking higher technology fees onto the tuition bill can be a sensitive issue for students, especially at a public university, Prineas says. “Fees that add on cost to education are a huge concern, and a huge concern for politicians as well,” he says.
Since UMUC is such a major player in online enrollment, Maynard says other institutions will be watching to see how authentication unfolds for the university. “Distance education is really looking for student identity and integrity solutions,” he says. “This is a solution that’s long overdue.”
