Teresa Cerratto Pargman

We identify that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has given rise to numerous public debates and academic scholarship. These reactions often highlight the threats GenAI poses to assessment practices and, by extension, the long-term implications for universities’ ability to provide quality education and trusted credentials. We position these responses along a continuum, from those who advocate a return to tightly controlled onsite examinations to those who claim that the presence of GenAI renders traditional examinations futile and obsolete, and who see this moment as an opportunity to free the university from the ‘shackles’ of assessment and credentialing altogether. In this chapter, we engage critically with the latter position. This chapter employs critical speculative methods and presents a dystopian-oriented vignette in which the university loses its relevance as a credential-granting institution. We identify and discuss three key dimensions in which higher education needs to engage critically with GenAI: (i) how AI reshapes disciplinary knowledge across fields; (ii) how it transforms university teachers’ work environments; and (iii) how widespread GenAI use might affect student capabilities. We aim to raise critical questions for institutions, educators, and policymakers about GenAI’s brutal irruption into higher education and potential consequences on assessment practices.

This workshop draws on the notion of emancipatory HCI, understood as an approach to design and research that actively challenges systems of domination and supports agency, justice, and alternative futures. From this perspective, participation is revisited as a transformative practice, where emancipation is not a stable outcome but a dynamic force; a “pulse” that emerges, circulates, and at times dissipates within participatory processes. The workshop creates space to reflect on tensions, ambivalences, and the conditions under which emancipatory practices can be sustained or reactivated in contemporary socio-technical contexts. Through embodied scenarios and collaborative mapping, participants will explore challenges and strategies for sustaining emancipatory engagement, particularly in contexts characterized by power asymmetries and institutional constraints, as well as by emerging technological conditions such as AI and data infrastructures. The workshop brings together researchers and practitioners across domains, including public sector design, activism, and sensitive contexts, to critically reflect on participation beyond normative assumptions of empowerment.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and systems come with bold promises to enhance human development and learning, while at the same time they raise significant fears about deskilling the workforce ...

While student privacy is frequently a topic of concern in studies about data-powered technologies in higher education, we still know little about handling student privacy in online proctoring systems (OPS). To better understand the challenges associated with student privacy in higher educational practice, we conducted an interview study examining various stakeholders’ understandings of privacy in OPS. We interviewed ten stakeholders–including teachers, students, and administration staff, such as the head of the department, the head of the IT department, and examination administrators–directly involved in the procurement and use of an online examination platform with proctoring features, in one of the largest universities in Scandinavia, to investigate stakeholders’ privacy perceptions, privacy concerns, privacy awareness, and perceived responsibility regarding the privacy practices of OPS. The findings show the participants perceive privacy in OPS as a seclusive and anonymous state of being, a way to control information, and an individual right. The results also point to stakeholders’ concerns regarding collecting sensitive information about the students, the possibility of information misuse, and improper access to students’ personal information. Furthermore, the study’s results identify trade-offs between the stakeholders’ concerns for privacy and the benefits of using OPS for examinations in higher education. This study underscores the need for higher education institutions to involve students and educators in procuring and deploying OPS and develop strategies for cultivating privacy awareness and responsible privacy practices. Finally, implications for developing responsible digital practices in higher education are discussed.