Mizzou students required to install location tracking app so college can ‘pinpoint’ them
- The University of Missouri has started using an app in order to track students’ locations to measure attendance in classes.
- While student athletes are required to use the app, new students who are not athletes will have the ability to opt-in.
New student-athletes at the University of Missouri are being required to participate in a tracking program designed to measure and enforce class attendance, a university spokesman confirmed to Campus Reform following a report from The Kansas City Star.
Despite privacy concerns, officials defended the decision as one to the benefit of students, as the school’s athletics department has already been using the app, SpotterEdu, to track certain student-athletes. While athletes are required to use the app, new students who are not athletes will be able to opt-in to the program, a Mizzou spokesman clarified to Campus Reform.”From labs to auditoriums our technology can expand to cover any size of space accurately and precisely” Tweet This
“Participation in the pilot, offered to fewer than 2 [percent] of MU students, is completely optional. If a student does not want to use the app to track their attendance, they will be required to check in with their professor through an alternate method, such as signing an attendance sheet,” a university statement issued Monday after the initial publication of this article stated.
SpotterEDU, developed by a former basketball coach, is designed to monitor a user’s attendance by “pinpoint[ing] students within a classroom until they leave, providing continuous, reliable and non-invasive attendance,” according to the app’s website. While the app ensures that students are in the classroom during class times, it claims it does not track students’ locations anywhere else.
“We only care if students are in class during class; no GPS tracking means we can’t locate them anywhere else,” the app’s website states.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
