110 Cum Laude is a platform that helps professors detect students who are cheating or are distracted
It's called 110 Cum Laude and it's the new web app developed by an Italian company that helps teachers understand when students are listless, are cheating or simply not following the lesson online. With the outbreak of the pandemic and the consequent closure of schools, teachers and pupils have discovered the advantages and disadvantages of distance learning. Specialized platforms such as Google Classroom and WeSchool or video conferencing apps such as Zoom, Skype and Google Meet have turned into full-fledged online classrooms.
While they've offered a great alternative solution for teachers, they've also allowed students to take a lot more liberties than classroom instruction. With simple tricks, it is possible to not listen to lectures or to "cheat" teachers during class assignments and questions. That's why 110 Cum Laude was created, a web-app that can be accessed directly from the computer's browser and that, thanks to neural networks and machine learning, is able to identify a prompter close to the students.
How 110 Cum Laude works
110 Cum Laude is not a program that you have to install on your PC, but a web-app that can be opened from the browser and works in tandem with distance learning and video conferencing platforms. But how does 110 Cum Laude work? The app has two features: Lessons and Exams. The first allows you to check the class remotely and find out if any student is not paying attention or is not following the lesson. Exams, on the other hand, helps you find out who is cheating during a lesson, or if they are getting tips from people nearby.
To offer these services, 110 Cum Laude uses MorphCast's neural network technology that improves over time through machine learning. How does 110 Cum Laude figure out if a person is copying or distracted? Thanks to facial recognition: based on the position of the gaze or the presence of strange noises, the application is able to call the professor's attention, reporting malpractice.
New features are also coming, allowing professors to find out if the student is wearing wireless headphones, or if he or she is using a tablet or smartphone.
110 Cum Laude: privacy
The application was developed following all privacy and GDPR directives. All the data collected by 110 Cum Laude is not stored locally or even on a server, so that no hacker can get hold of it. As explained by the developers, a frame is taken from the video stream and placed in a data structure in RAM. Since RAM is a volatile memory, it does not remain saved after viewing. Algorithms analyze the frame and turn it into numbers that represent anonymous traits such as movement, emotion, age and gender.
Cost 110 Cum Laude
Logically, the web-app is not free: the cost is on a pay-as-you-go basis based on hours of use, number of students and questions and classwork to be done during the year.