Remote Proctoring Process for Online Exams

Importance of Online Exam

The invention of technology has led to many positive changes in the world. It helped humans to progress faster in every field. It made human life much easier and more comfortable. The technology also challenged and encouraged humans to innovate many more new technologies with their knowledge. 

Online exams can be considered a wonderful innovation created with the help of technology. Online exams are those exams which can be conducted using internet-based devices. These exams have a look and feel of a traditional exam. The only difference is that the answers need to be typed rather than written.

Online examination software is a platform developed with the help of highly advanced technology. This software is specially developed to overcome the issues or shortcomings of classroom-based traditional examinations.

This software provides the benefit of giving the exam from the comfort of home. But appearing for an exam from a remote location might raise doubts about the techniques being used to prevent cheating or malpractices.

Thus, in this blog, we will see how online exams are monitored and the ways in which they help to resolve the issues related to physical invigilation (proctoring).

Challenges faced during invigilation of traditional exams

Traditional exams are conducted in classrooms at specified exam centres. Following are some of the challenges faced while conducting traditional exams.

The exam centres need to be made available for giving the exams. This includes costs getting invested in finding exam centres, arranging the infrastructure and appointing examiners for invigilation.

The candidates and examiners need to travel to the exam centres. This can result in a waste of time and money for both.

The question papers and answer sheets which are made up of paper, need to be made available in adequate quantity. Thus, paper-based examinations are not very environment-friendly.

Also, the answer sheets are carried to and fro from the exam centres physically and stored at a location. This way of transportation is prone to damage and mishandling. It would also involve some costs to be invested in infrastructure.

In short, traditional pen-and-paper-based examinations are environmentally unfriendly, involve tedious manual work and most importantly, involve huge administrative and transportation costs.

Challenges of Remote Exams

The Online Examination Process is cost-effective, but it also brings its own challenges of managing distributed exams across multiple locations. The most challenging part of conducting a remote online exam is its invigilation.

As the exams are held in diverse locations, it is impossible for the examiners to visit each candidate physically for identity verification as also to monitor them during the exam.

In most cases, the exam authorities need to identify designated exam centres and students need to visit the centre to appear for the online exam. There is a significant cost involved in managing those exam centres. Thus the issue of arranging exam centres, infrastructure and physical invigilation is not completely resolved.

Splashgain has thus come up with a leading-edge technology to address these challenges. Eklavvya is online examination software developed using various highly advanced remote proctoring mechanisms which would help prevent cheating and malpractices at all costs. It will also help to eliminate all the tedious manual work and thus help to bring down the costs to a large extent. 

Let us understand the concept of remote proctoring and how it helps to conduct online exams securely.

Remote Proctoring Process

Remote Proctoring for Online Exam System

 

Remote proctoring is the process of authenticating, authorising and controlling the online examination process in a scalable manner. The remote proctoring technique enables you to monitor the candidate appearing for the exam from any location. Technology enables the invigilators to monitor the candidates from anywhere worldwide.

In the traditional exam process, an invigilator needs to be present at the exam centre to validate candidates appearing for the exam. For each exam centre, you need one invigilator for around 30-50 candidates. So for conducting the exam of 1000+ candidates, you would need more than 25 invigilators controlling the exam process. This would involve too much manual work and unnecessary costs.

The remote proctoring technique enables the invigilator to sit at a computer lab/ Home and get a view of the entire exam process of individual students/ Group/ Batch of students with the help of a web camera.

All the activities of the exam can be tracked and monitored easily. There is no need for the invigilator to be physically present at the location. The invigilator can eliminate travelling and other miscellaneous costs. Manual activities related to exam administration also get reduced with technology implementation for exam proctoring.

There are many techniques involved in Remote proctoring that help to authenticate and authorise the candidates before the exam. This helps to eliminate the chances of identity fraud. With the help of web cameras and speakers, the system can capture a candidate’s photos, and video footage as also sounds from the candidate’s environment.  

Remote proctoring also blocks access to browsers other than the one in which exam activity is going on. Thus the candidate is unable to open a new browser or switch to another one.

Remote proctoring also helps to log the IP address of the system and keep track of every activity related to the online exam.

Artificial Intelligence-powered features such as chatbots and suspicious object detection also enable the invigilators to put a stop to cheating.

Thus, Remote proctoring is the one and only best solution to conduct online exams in a secure and hassle-free manner.

Remote Invigilator can perform the following tasks

  1. Initiate Live Chat with Candidates appearing for the exam
  2. Abort Exam of the remote candidate in case it is found that the candidate is cheating during an exam
  3. Live Streaming View of the Candidate during Exam Process to authenticate the individual identity
  4. Verify that the candidate is not getting any help from the surrounding environment.

Remote Exam Proctoring Management

Remote Proctoring Process for Online Exam

Use cases of Remote Proctoring

  1. Education institutes looking to conduct Online Entrance Exams for prospective students can use this technology to conduct online exams across the nation. The process of booking exam centers, administration, transportation, physical invigilation, etc gets eliminated.
  2. The Organisation wants to conduct a hiring/employment test for prospective employees who can rely on the remote proctored test as one of the criteria.
  3. The Coaching institute can conduct nationwide mock exams with a remote Proctored mechanism
  4. Skill-Based Training Organisations that offer final certificate exams can utilise the remote proctoring process to conduct their online exam in a cost-effective manner.

Conclusion

The online exam process is becoming the norm for the majority of exams. Online methods of the exam are being used to conduct Entrance Exam, Practice Test Series, Tests for Employment purposes, Tests for the assessment of internal employees, Tests for skill-building, etc. for various schools, colleges, universities, as well as for corporate organisations.

Gradually, most of the tests are going to be conducted online in the coming future. 

The growth in the demand for online examinations will encourage the adoption of remote proctoring services. This will help to keep the momentum of digitization and enhance the quality of education in many ways.


Online Exam and Knowledge Management Software for Skill Based Training

Eklavvya.com is an online assessment and knowledge management solution used by many corporate, Professional Training Institutes, Universities involved in skill-based training. It is useful tool for Various Test Preparation, Entrance Tests for Academic Courses, Regular Assessment for University Courses. Many Education entities have been benefited from this new approach to the assessment. You can enroll for Free Trial to check all features.

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