Black River Technical College has in place effective procedures to ensure the student who registers in a distance education course or program is the same student who participates in and completes the course or program and receives the academic credit. Students have a unique sign-in through the myBRTC portal that then directs them to Moodle, the College’s learning management system.
Online, hybrid, and tech-enhanced instructors use the following methods to verify student identity in courses: Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor, Moodle’s built-in recording device, and Turnitin. The use of Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor and/or Moodle’s built-in recording device is required in all online courses and students are required to show a state or college-issued ID to verify identity to the instructor. If the course has written work, Turnitin is used to verify the work is authentic and not plagiarized from the web or another student. While there are no additional costs to the students associated with the verification procedures, the DE Fees students pay for enrolling in online, hybrid, and CVN courses are used to purchase student identity verification software used within the College’s LMS.
The securing of personal information within the College starts at the desktop / end user level with centrally managed antivirus software, centrally managed operating system / software updates and mandatory password reset periods and complexity. This security continues at the network level with network security appliances at the border and industry standard secure socket layer encryption of all important data transmission at the server level. The College also works with the State IT auditors to ensure that the College follows the IT security guidelines of the State.