Can You Cheat In Online Proctored Exams?
As the country is battling the pandemic’s second wave, universities and schools are looking to opt for online proctored exams to ensure that students do not cheat. Certainly, CoVid 19 pandemic resulted in the escalation of the need to use technology in every sector including educational institutions. As a result, educational institutions critical of the sanctity of traditional exams have been favouring proctored exams over the offline mode as a reliable option.
Closure of schools in most areas across the country and recommendation of the government to move to online learning had put the institutes in a state of uncertainty, forcing them to opt for ways to conduct online proctored exams from home.
In 2020, the nationwide lockdown imposed an obligation on the universities to postpone nationally recognized large-scale exams such as NEET, IIT JEE, CLAT, AILET , etc. Initially, when CoVID was declared as a pandemic, educational institutes expressed their reservations for conducting exams by resorting to online exam proctoring software. But gradually, institutes adopted viable options inonline remote proctoring software enabled with Artificial Intelligence to assess students .
One of their main doubts was, and something that remains is, “Is it possible to cheat during online proctored exams?”.
Today’s article aims to answer this question only if students can cheat in online proctored exams or not.
Can students cheat in online proctored exams?
The nature of technology adopted for conducting online exams enables universities to manage a large-scale examination that is easier to track and manageable from a centrally secured server. This minimizes the possibility of paper leaks, loss of answer scripts during transit, or missing evaluating a particular question.
With remote proctoring software, educational institutes have got a viable alternative for invigilation of physical exams. Universities can now process their results quickly and be flexible in defining the exam patterns with exams driven by technology. Furthermore, the software has enabled exam invigilators to monitor the screen activities of the students in the form of audio, images, and videos. These features combined with the software for online remote proctoring exams ensure that students are prevented from resorting to unfair and prohibited means.
Let’s understand how the software deters students from cheating in online proctored exams.
Two Factor Authentication Prohibits Impersonation
While giving an online assessment, students often think that they’ll impersonate their identity by letting someone else take the exam on their behalf. They often believe that they’ll be successful in fooling the proctor by resorting to such means.
However, this is not possible. The online proctoring software consists of a two-factor authentication consisting of facial tests and voice recognition, which they must undergo before taking the tests. Further, they must also produce their ID cards for test authentication by having their ID cards. The software demands the matching of the ID card with the face in the proctored exam video. Along with this, the proctor captures the pictures of the students taking the exam at random points to detect and stop impersonation.
Deters Students From Logging In From Multiple Devices
Often students try to act smart by firstly logging in from a device by filling in the valid identity card, passing through the initial screening, and then attempting to impersonate by asking someone else to continue the exam. However, they do not realize that once they log in for the first time, the proctor starts tracking their IP address and location.
In addition, they are not aware that to log in from a new device, they have to log in from a new link generated by the software itself. This feature and mandatory requirement, therefore, restrict access to a single device only.
The fingerprinting proctoring feature available in Pesofts online proctoring software differentiates multiple voices during the test in the test environment. While the students are giving the exam online, the proctoring software continuously monitors the voices and raises red flags in any discrepancy. This deters the students from resorting to unfair means as they know that their exam would get canceled if they continue ignoring the red flags.
Prohibits Students From Accessing Other Devices During Online Exam
During the online assessment, the test takers often attempt to take help by browsing answers from other devices. To prevent students from resorting to this, the remote online proctoring software tracks the examinee’s browser activities throughout the exam.
The students are required to allow the software to access their screen throughout the exam. If in case the students use the websites prohibited by the exam conducting agencies, the software automatically raises a red flag. This is because the software has such features which make it aware of the time when the candidate either changes the browser, closes the tab, or copy/pastes answers from elsewhere.
Geo Tagging Feature Makes Universities Aware Of The Area From Where Students Are Taking Exam
To start the exam, test takers receive a unique link and verification code via email or the number provided to enter the test. The peculiar feature of these codes is that the test taker can only use them on the device they log in to and not on any other device.
Further, the geotagging feature of the software for online proctoring permits the universities to access the location from where the students are taking the test. This simple feature allows the educational institutes to know if the students are taking the test from a registered address or another location.
Disallows Mirroring Of Screen To Ensure Secure Exam
Test takers often resort to screen mirroring by downloading suitable apps to help others while giving an online proctored exam. Pesofts online proctoring software puts check to this too with the help of browsers to secure exams. The safe exam browser is an application that the candidates are required to install while they take an online test.
With this browser, examiners can filter the apps or websites which the students are allowed to open. Everything else which the exam conducting agency prohibits gets blocked, which disables the students from opening restricted websites to copy answers from. The examiners, through this, get complete control over how the students give the exam by maintaining examination integrity.
Deters Students From Resorting To Pea Pod Bluetooth Devices
Students often think that using micro-sized Bluetooth devices such as spy eyewear, invisible smartwatch, micro earbuds would not be within the proctor’s range for detection. It is also their belief that the small size would practically disable the proctor from identifying the usage of such devices. However, the artificial intelligence-enabled online proctoring software is sufficient to use such microdevices while students are giving the web-based exam.
The Last Word
Online remote proctoring software was available for a long time, but CoVID triggered the shift from the traditional exam last year. Proctored exams provide accuracy, cost-effectiveness, security, scalability, instant and personalized assessments. Thus, they fulfill the gap along with minimizing the dependency on physical infrastructure. However, to ensure all of this, it’s imperative to opt for software for online proctored exams which is efficient enough to provide all these benefits.
We at Pesofts provide the best software for online proctoring at affordable rates. Before the exam conducting agencies purchase our software, they can opt for the free trial. Not only this, our tech support team provides our customer 24*7 customer support.
We assure you that you won’t be disappointed.
We at Pesofts are there for you at every step. If you have any queries, we assure you to resolve them within a short period. Just lend us our hand & we will ensure you put ten steps forward for the students & the educational institutes.