How to implement eProctoring to avoid exam fraud?

With this third and last article, we close this series of posts related to eProctoring. Below, we will talk about how to incorporate eProctoring systems into assessment processes. 

The implementation of an eProctoring solution affects the three main actors in the educational process: educational centers, teachers and students.

Educational centers are responsible for designing the pedagogical model at a time when digital transformation must go much further than simply providing a set of tools, involving the rest of the educational community in this change. Sticking to assessment processes, the tasks to be carried out by the centers are:

• Choose the most suitable solution

Once the need for an eProctoring tool to verify the identity of the students has been identified, educational centers have to choose the one that best suits their needs. In our previous post the different factors to consider in this choice were presented.

• Integrate the chosen solution

Once the tool has been chosen, it is time to integrate it into the educational process. This integration can range from the simple installation of an additional module in the Learning Management System (LMS) to a complex configuration process in a custom-made solution with multiple integrations; for all this, time can be an important factor in deciding when the integration should be carried out.

• Train

One of the factors that can be key in the acceptance of these tools is to offer a correct and complete training about them, both to teachers and students.

Teachers must know in advance the features offered by the tool, its limitations and what type of reports will be obtained.

Students must be provided with detailed information about the tool requirements (both hardware and software). They must also be able to conduct pilot tests previous to the assessment period, to avoid any setback the day of the exam, with the increased stress that this would mean.

• Offer alternatives and complements to eProctoring

Educational centers are responsible of offering alternatives to eProctoring for those students or assessments that cannot benefit from this system.

Among the cases that should be considered, are technical limitations (for example, students who do not have the appropriate computer equipment or Internet connection), and students with different abilities, who could find in eProctoring tools an additional barrier in their training.

It is also important to be aware of those assessments that may be difficult to adapt to an online environment, or those where identity surveillance may be unnecessary.

• Ensure aspects of the students’ privacy

Ensuring students’ privacy must be a priority for educational centers. Students must know at all times what information is being collected (camera, screenshots, etc.). Furthermore, this gathering of information must be limited to the assessment process and all access to the information collected (data, reports generated) must be restricted.

Teachers must know the features of the implemented eProctoring solution, since based on them, they will have to make a series of changes in their assessment processes.

• Adapt the assessment to online format

First, they have to adapt traditional assessments to an online format; for example, the test may need to be entered into the LMS, so teachers should be familiar with the tools that the system puts at their disposal.

Likewise, they must take into consideration that eProctoring tools reduce but do not completely eliminate the possibility of fraud, so it is important to consider tests where the development of answers is prioritized, or reasoning is necessary to get the correct answer in the case of multiple-choice exams. This prevents the answer from being easily obtained with a simple internet search, for example.

• Configure eProctoring features 

Depending on the surveillance tool available, teachers may be able to choose the options that will be active during the test. According to the type of exam, it may not be necessary to use some of them, such as, for example, preventing the student from opening new tabs in the browser if the exam requires he or she to access other resources during the test.

• Analyze the reports generated 

Finally, when correcting, teachers must have access to the reports generated by the eProctoring tool, and be able to analyze the different alerts identified by the application.  

This step is essential, since all tools are susceptible to generate false positives, that is, alerts in situations where the student is not making any attempt to cheat. Thus, depending on the degree of evidence provided, previously-defined penalties should be applied or not on the final grade.

Students must know well in advance the requirements and operation of the eProctoring tool, in order to get to the assessment day without the added stress of facing an unfamiliar process. For them, the process must be as transparent as possible during the performance of the assessments.

• Get to know the eProctoring tool

The first step is to make sure they have the necessary tools to be able to perform eProctoring. At this point, the information provided by the educational center is key.

Reviewing the technical requirements in advance and taking a mock exam prior to the assessment day will help identify any issues and will allow the educational center to offer a solution or an alternative to the eProctoring surveillance option, if necessary.

• Verify identity before the exam

On the day of the exam, the only additional step that the student should be required to do is to perform the identity verification process requested by the tool. In certain solutions, this step can be performed days before, which would further help reduce the stress prior to any exam.

The implementation of eProctoring tools requires the involvement of the entire educational community, starting with educational centers, that have to lead the process, passing through  teachers, who have to adapt their processes to guarantee the success of the remote assessment, and ending with students, for whom the whole process must be as transparent as possible, so that they can focus on the most important thing, which is to demonstrate the knowledge in which they are being assessed.

With this article, we end the series dedicated to eProctoring. In previous articles, we have presented what it consist and what factors should be considered to choose the most suitable solucion for each situation.

At Opentrends we have the ability to accompany educational institutions during the processes of analysis, selection and implementation of the most appropriate tool. Contact us for more information.