How to proctor an online exam to avoid fraud?

How to proctor an online exam to ensure that no one takes fraudulent advantage of its non-face-to-face nature is one of the major problems for teachers associated with the emergence and entrenchment of e-learning.

And this is not a trivial problem since, due to the flexibility it provides when combining studies with other daily tasks, more and more students and universities are opting for this type of teaching.

As in other areas of life, new solutions often go hand in hand with new problems: how to effectively monitor students not copying during an online exam without violating their right to privacy along the way? How to ensure that they do not have outside help to answer the questions?  

In this article, we will give several guidelines you can follow to minimize the risk of unwanted practices by students while taking an online test. 

These guidelines range from choosing a specific test format to using a proctoring application such as SMOWL

4 guidelines on how to proctor an online exam

With the possibility that students may rely on extra help when taking online exams, teachers have taken specific control measures.

These measures range from ensuring that the student cannot use any unauthorized external software during the exam to dual-camera control settings that ensure that there are no significant elements or changes in the room during the time the test is being taken.

In the following paragraphs, we have compiled some tactics that teachers or teaching teams can resort to prevent possible fraudulent behavior on the part of students.

Change the type of test

The performance of an oral exam, where the student must answer reasoned questions on the subject studied, minimizes the possibility of resorting to external aids or previously memorized information. 

It can also work the realization of a multiple-choice test where the answers, far from being direct, require the previous reasoning that leads to a conclusion. In this way, external aids are limited or even neutralized completely.

Limit the duration of the test

If the time students have to respond is short or limited, it will be difficult for them to spend it on anything other than focusing on taking the exam. 

Thus, if the test duration is no more than, for example, 15 minutes, students will have practically no time to search for information on the Internet or turn to someone to tell them the answers to the questions.

Focusing on practicality

The theory is all very well and necessary, but it also makes it much easier to use cheating tactics. 

Suppose the staging of the exam is eminently practical. In that case, students will have no choice but to apply their theoretical knowledge to pass the exam, and it will be much more difficult for them to use unethical tricks.

Use a proctoring software

Proctoring, or e-proctoring, originated in the United States, although today it is used in practically all universities worldwide. 

It is a system for monitoring and supervising online tests to ensure academic security and avoid possible malpractice on the part of students. 

At the same time, the mere knowledge of being in front of a controlled and supervised exam serves as a dissuasive tool for the student, who will think twice before resorting to unethical methods to pass the test.

How do our proctoring products help you proctor an online exam?

With technology taking giant steps forward almost every day, using our proctoring products can be a great option to monitor your online exams and keep track of your student’s behavior.

Our proctoring tool is dedicated to supervising and monitoring the student’s activity and behavior during the exam duration. It generates a report reflecting the incidences or suspicious behaviors observed by the student during the test if any.

Among the data that appear in this report are, for example, the different internet accesses to which the student has resorted during the test, which pages have been accessed and what information has been searched in them, as well as the applications that have been opened and whether or not they are allowed by the educational entity organizing the exam.

If you are interested in discovering all that our proctoring software can do for you, do not hesitate to ask us for a free demo and see why it is considered one of the safest and most efficient ways to proctor an online exam and avoid fraud.