Online exam proctoring for invigilating remote assessments

How the move to remote and digital-first learning has brought online exam proctoring to the fore.

Exam proctoring has never been without its difficulties, but the move to proctoring online exams brings different challenges.

Now professional membership and accreditation bodies need to find ways of adopting online exam invigilation. The higher the stakes of the assessment, the greater the need for reliable, trustworthy and ethical accreditation.

The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically accelerated the adoption of digital-first and remote learning, which means large numbers of assessments are also being undertaken online. This relatively new scenario raises several new dilemmas for professional bodies:

• How do you check the identity of someone taking a remote assessment?
• How do you know if someone has cheat notes in the room for a remote assessment?
• How do you stop people browsing the internet for answers during a remote assessment?

The methods being used to ensure the integrity of exam results vary from plugins and tools that block access to external browsers or time assessments, through to one-to-one Zoom proctoring in which an online invigilator will verify ID and demand a webcam tour of the room before the assessment starts (just in case the sneaky note on the palm of a hand of yesteryear is replaced by a wallpapering of cheatsheets).

Some of the most popular online exam proctoring tools for remote assessments include:

 

Talview

Online proctoring software Talview offers both automated and live proctoring. Its automated proctoring tools include facial recognition technology (so you can avoid impersonation), automated analysis of user behaviour, browser patrolling (so you know when a user closes or changes their browser) and real-time audio, video and screen recording. It’s live proctoring tools include live monitoring by trained proctors and one-to-one chat between candidates and proctors.

 

Questionmark

Questionmark‘s proctoring hub also includes automated and live proctoring. Under its record & review system, the remote assessment is recorded in full for potential review later. Anomalies (such as a second person on screen) or automatically flagged for review. Its Proctoring Online service uses an online proctor to confirm the candidate’s identity and supervise the remote assessment.

 

Better Examinations

Better Examinations offers a flexible approach to proctoring depending on the stakes of the assessment in question. For high stakes assessments, you can use automated AI or live proctoring and ID verification. For lower stake assessments there are locked down browser tools, which lock the candidate’s browser or allow access only to specific websites.

 

Choosing the best proctoring software

The best online exam proctoring tools for your organisation will depend on:

Your technology: Which plugins and tools are suitable for your online learning platform? Moodle LMS now integrates Safe Exam Browser, which locks the window when an assessment is in progress, as standard.

Your budget: Hiring people to watch your learners sit exams over video conferencing software might not be viable with the money available.

Your circumstances: An end-of-module assessment for an optional first aid course will need less stringent proctoring than a professional qualification exam. How important is the integrity of your exam results in relation to the cost and implementation of proctoring?

With the growing need for organisations to deliver even high-stakes assessments online and remotely, we can expect to see the number of exam proctoring increase in the coming months and years.

If you’d like a chat about integrating online exam proctoring with the content and courses in your LMS do get in touch and we’ll share our experiences of how our customers are successfully overcoming these new challenges.

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