MOOCs, Trust, and the Signature Track

On Sunday I received an email from Coursera letting me know that the Signature Track was now available for Cathy Davidson’s MOOC, “History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education.” I felt myself tense up a little.
The Signature Track, for those who aren’t familiar with it, uses multiple forms of authentication (government-issued photo ID, webcam, credit card) to verify that people taking a course are who they say they are. The signature component of the verification is a biometric technique. Your unique typing pattern, like how many milliseconds you push down on the “e” key, is recorded, and you type in a signature phrase to verify your identity. The service was announced in January 2013 in a blog post, but unlike much of the other stuff happening around MOOCs at the time, it didn’t get that much press. More...