Proctoring

How leading university prevented cheating during online exams

Miss Ai
07 Jun, 2024

How leading university prevented cheating during online exams

Background

Social distancing norms are forcing educational institutions to conduct online exams for all kinds of subjects. Most of the institutes have opted for multiple choice-based questions (MCQ) based online exams.

Universities and institutes are also trying to identify new ways to conduct practical exams and theory/ subjective exams.

Remote proctored exams are becoming the new normal to manage examination processes for academic courses as well as professional courses.

Students are also getting used to the new situation. However, there are some students who have found ways to cheat in proctored exams using hi-tech methods.

Conducting Online Exam with Question Navigation

One of India’s reputed universities used technology to conduct online exams. Students were provided login and 1 hour time to appear for the exam within a certain duration of a 3-hour window. Question navigation was enabled for the exam.

It was a proctored exam. As question navigation was enabled, it allowed students to see all questions using navigation and then attempt each question one by one. Such settings might be vulnerable to cheating practice as students could logout from the exam window, browse for answers, and then re-login. They could do this multiple times during online exams.

As a result of such exams, no students getting more than 90% marks have increased considerably for those exam sessions of the university.

Average students also got more marks in this exam. If more number of students gets such high marks then question marks would be raised over the authenticity of the online exam process.

Setting per Question Timer for cheating Prevention

Per question timer for online exam

Based on the experience of previous online exams, the university decided to implement a per-question timer for the online exam using the Eklavvya platform.

Define Per Question Timer for Online Exam

Online Question Paper was set with timing for each question set to 60 seconds

Students were shown questions only for 60 seconds on the screen

A student is expected to attempt questions in that stipulated time only

For mathematical calculation-oriented questions, the timer for each question can be set to 120 seconds or 180 seconds

Students were unable to move forward or backward to see questions

The system used a randomization approach and only one question was visible on the screen

There were 2 timers, one for the entire exam and another for each question

The proctoring method ensured that the system captured video, audio, and images of the student attempting the exam

Per Question Timer during Online Exam Process to prevent cheating

Facial Detection using AI

Facial Recognition During Online Exam

Due to the proctoring techniques, the University was also able to identify if the person was present in front of the web camera continuously during the online examination process. The system was able to recognize if more than one person was present or if no person was present in front of the camera.

It helped to prevent online examination cheating or any other exam malpractices during online exams.

Result of the Online Exam with per question Timer

Per question timer, implementation resulted in a fair result of the online exam. The university conducted millions of exam sessions for its 150,000+ students. Here are some of the statistics of the exam results.

Online Exam Result Analysis

Less than 3% of the students achieved more than 90% of the marks in the exam

15 % students failed in the exam

Very few number of students got more than 80% of the marks

The result was according to expected or traditional offline exam results which followed standard deviation with the majority of the students being in the range of 40 to 65% of the marks.

Want to conduct Fair Exams to test the Knowledge of the students?

Here is the success strategy to conduct online exams in a fair and cheating-free manner

Define Per Question Timer for the exam. Per question, the timer forces students to attempt questions in a specified time. The chances of malpractice are reduced completely.

Use AI Proctoring process to validate student

Question bank should be designed to test the analytical ability, and thinking capacity of the student

The quality of multiple choice questions should be able to force students to study with conceptual knowledge

Keep a combination of subjective/ theory and objective (multiple choice ) questions during the exam

Success Story of Eklavvya Platform to conduct fair online exams

Online exam success factors

The Eklavvya platform has been used by many universities across the world to conduct fair and cheating-free online exams.

We have built-in AI algorithms and configurations to define online exams with per-question timer, question/option shuffling, secure browser, subjective exams with diagrams uploading facility etc.

Leading universities have started implementing useful features like per-question timers to conduct fair online exams.

If you are looking to conduct online exams with the highest form of security then connect with us for the demo of our platform.