Cheating in examinations is something that is inevitable. And this issue has been increasing all over tremendously.
In a class of say 50 students, almost 5 students tend to cheat; and this number keeps on increasing every year.
To get to the root cause of this, a survey was conducted which led us to this news.
In a higher level examination in a state of India, in which almost 6 million students enrolled.
When the squads were on rounds, out of the 6 million, almost thousands of students, 5643 to be exact were found with some or the other form of cheating material or were caught cheating.
This is only the statistics of one state exam. There are obviously going to be more in the entire country.
To sum it up, almost 15% of the entire student population is involved in some or the other form of cheating.
Online examination or assessment is one of the key areas of education technology. Online examination usage is likely going to increase for various types of examinations, competitive entrance tests, recruitment tests. Online assessment has proved to be cost effective and better way to filter out and identify suitable candidates.
Security is one of the key areas of online assessment which still needs some improvements . Secure online assessment can be useful to prevent all kinds of malpractices tried by the candidates during online exam process.
Candidates appearing for the exam may try to overcome security aspect of online exam in various ways. Eklavvya platform has added some of the best practices related to security of online assessment. It can help to prevent malpractice of online examination system.
Following are some of the key areas to lookout during the online exam process.
Article Contents
What are the problems with the manual examination?
There are always chances of copying or cheating taking place, misplacing or mishandling of the papers, delays in the results generations etc.
Not to forget the amount of money needed to be invested right from printing the question papers and answer papers to getting the papers checked and storing them, etc.
Online examination is simply a practical solution to avoid all such issues.
Speaking of exams, cheating and copying are always in the picture. It is inevitable. Online portals are not entirely ‘cheating proof’. Cheating can take place anyhow.
But there is always a solution to every problem!
How do candidates cheat in online exams?
Whether online or manual, students will always try and find new tricks and hacks to copy.
With manual examinations, the ‘means to copy’ were either to carry chits or write stuff on desks or hands, etc.
In the online examination, simply the question is typed in into the search engines and the answers were there!
There are cases when the candidates really go out of the line to cheat and get at least passing marks.
Can online exams detect cheating?
Yes, online examinations can detect cheating, more easily rather. The software for conducting online examinations is designed in such a way that they are secure and reliable to prevent any type of malpractices from taking place.
These tips may definitely come in handy while conducting online examinations.
Prevention of Question Copying :
During the examination, if the student is stuck on any particular question, he/she might attempt to copy the question and paste it on another tab with a search engine to look out for the correct answer.
Eklavvya platform prevents copying of the questions during the exam process. It helps to keep question paper secure for the online exam. All the copying keyboard shortcuts like pressing Control key, the Shift key is prevented. If the user tries to use those keys then the user may be thrown out of the exam process.
Prevention of screen sharing programs
The technology users these days know their way around the systems they deal with. They will always come up with new loopholes to override the system securities.
Screen sharing is one such smart ways, where the user can share the content of his screen with another user on a different device.
Sharing the screen with someone in an online examination is as good as sharing your answer sheet with them; an act of copying.
Eklavvya platform provides application to manage online exams which can prevent all other activities including screen sharing, print screen options during online exam activity. User is not able to do any other activity during exam process.
This bars the candidate from doing any sort of malpractice during the entire examination.
Screen sharing is yet another no go for cheating
Preventing candidates from opening any other window during exam process
The candidates are undoubtedly tech-savvy enough to open up a new tab or say search engine during the examination to surf for the correct answers.
To prevent this particular misuse of the gadgets, Eklavvya has designed the software in such a distinct way that it will layoff the candidate from switching the tabs.
Eklavvya platform provides add on solution which can be kept active on desktop machine to prevent candidates from opening any other window during online exam.Online Exam process becomes highly secure.
If candidate tries to open any other window during exam process, system shows warning message that you are trying to move away from the exam window. System keeps log of no of times user has moved away from the main exam window. If user tries to move away from exam window more than 2-3 times then examination process gets terminated.
Capturing Photograph of candidate using remote Web camera
Even with manual examinations, there have been cases of students going to some really weird limits to cheat during exams.
Weird limits meaning hiding chits in any possible places, writing answers on any surface found, etc etc.
Now CCTVs are not allowed in the classrooms to record all of this. But with the online examination, as the exams take place on any laptop or computer, it is possible to capture the photograph of the candidate through the webcams attached.
Online Examination System Eklavvya can capture candidate photographs during live exam. You can configure to capture photo of candidate after each 30 seconds/ 40 seconds etc. If Online exam is for 30 minutes then system would be able to capture around 60 photos of the candidates after each 30 second interval. This would help to verify if valid candidate is appearing for the exam and authenticity is maintained for entire exam duration.
Live Streaming of remote candidate using web camera
Online Examination System Eklavvya also has facility of Remote Proctoring. This facility helps to capture live streaming of the remote candidate appearing for online exam.
Remote candidate video streaming can be seen live or even at later time as it is recorded in the system. This is very useful for authentication and authorization of the online exam process.
What is remote proctoring?
Live video streaming or Remote proctoring as they call it, is a feature of online examination system which enables the examiner to keep track of each and every activity or movement done by the candidate.
This system not only allows the examiner to keep an eye on the students but is also useful in the identity verification of the right candidate.
Remote proctoring comes in handy for many scenarios like the identity of the candidate, or to keep an eye on each and every move of the candidate if the candidate is doing any sort of abuse of the system provided, etc.
Above mentioned are the select few ways to prevent the candidate to violate the examination process. With the application and usage of these features, you too shall be able to conduct the examinations of your institution in an acutely secured manner.
They say prevention is better than cure. It is better to take cautious measures before any real-time damage is done.
Eklavvya’s software provides its customers with the best of facilities to conduct online examinations, not only error free but also in a user-friendly and extremely secure manner.
Those are some of the key aspects which can help to secure online exam process. Eklavvya platform provides all the features and technology to conduct secure online exams. Many organizations and educational institutes, universities are using this solution to conduct online assessment process. Eklavvya platform has been used by some of the leading organizations including multinational companies, corporate, large scale universities to conduct assessment process.
Currently Eklavvya platform is used by more than 300 organisations for managing their online assessment process. You can check all the features or even register for free trial today.
How to Prevent Cheating during Online Exams ?
1. Use technology of remote proctoring to conduct online exams.
2. Design question paper in such a way where student need to do analysis, thinking for solving questions
3. Disable Question Navigation for the exam
4. Define Per Question Timer where student must attend particular question in specific time like 60 seconds. As soon as timer is elapsed system moves to next question.
5. Conduct descriptive exams where student can record answer in the form of voice and it can be evaluated by examiner by listening to audio answer.
