The COVID-19 outbreak has massively sent shockwaves across the globe as the spread and panic has reached pandemic propositions. It has brough many economies, industries and even countries to a near standstill and owning to strict quarantine measures and disrupted transport links, millions of students continue to remain holed up inside their homes, unable to attend schools, colleges or their universities. However, educational institutions are now turning to e-learning and online proctoring to safely administer their exams and lectures. Let’s find out how

Why Online Proctoring is Key to Conducting High-Stake Online Exams

According to Oxford Bibliographies, a high-stakes exam is an exam where the outcome is used to make decisions about promotion, admissions, graduation, and salaries of the test taker. Some examples would be entrance/admission tests, final term exams, certifications, and recruitment tests.

While the pandemic forced several schools and universities to cancel or postpone examinations, this decision proved to be the anchor of a much-needed upgrade in the education industry. It forced many universities to take the leap of faith in technology to evolve the way education took place and start exploring online proctored examinations.

For any high-stakes exams and recruitment tests, there is a huge apprehension to adopt remotely proctored examinations as an authentic and reliable way of assessing students because of the fear of cheating, as such exams make or break a student’s future.

But many advanced proctoring tools, such as iamNeo’s Live Proctoring, ensure in numerous ways that your test-takers do not cheat on proctored exams. Having mechanisms such as a 180-degree environment check, automated plus manual flagging of malpractice, browser policing, face and voice detection, etc., along with carefully selected and well-trained proctors ensure that any exams conducted through these platforms are highly reliable and efficient.

How does online proctoring work?

The introduction of online education has been welcomed by many but an important question still remains unanswered. How can schools and colleges conduct online exams for remotely located students? Surprisingly, the answer has been in plain view for quite some time- online proctoring. With the help of online proctoring services, teachers can deliver assessments without the risk of cheating, impersonation and most importantly, catching the coronavirus.

Sending students to their universities or physical test taking centers isn’t practical when they are spread around the world and during a pandemic, it might not be the safest or most responsible option. Online proctoring from companies such as iamNeo.ai, (competitor) and other providers uses live proctors, artificial intelligence, and a combination of the two to discourage students from cheating during online exams — and to catch them if they do.

iamNeo.ai, for instance offers many highly effective proctoring solutions for its customers.

• The students should verify their identity before they take the test with the help of their camera
• The AI scans the environment continuously to ensure there is no cheating aids or obstructions
• Eye contact, multiple persons in the room, full system monitoring including tab switches are monitored continuously and reported back to the proctor
• Advanced Plagiarism checker can be employed on every question to ensure neither the descriptive nor the programming questions are copy pasted from anywhere
• It can also flag potentially suspicious behaviour to the administrator for later review and all the data can be collected and analysed at any moment in time

In all the cases, the testing sessions are recorded using a student own webcam as well as microphone.

How Live Proctoring Can Help Conduct Secure High-Stakes Exams

On-Demand Testing – One of the setbacks of having online exams is its scheduling.

Even before the pandemic, test centres were usually open only specific days in a week and in colleges there should be a particular time to conduct the examination.

An advanced live proctoring software today, can help you virtually schedule exams at any point in time. Since the test takers don’t have to travel to the centre or college, scheduling exams with a click of the button, saves much of your and the students’ time and effort.

Security – One of the main concerns of today is security, or specifically digital security. A good online-proctoring platform can be extremely secure with the latest security implementations. A smart and efficient proctoring platform will provide you with full transparency on all the data being used, where and why it is being used and stored and how it is being discarded after an exam is over.

Scalability – To conduct online high-stakes exams, the service that a client use must be scalable. That means, the platform should be able to hold multiple exam at a time, regardless of geographies.

With the Ed-tech industry developing rapidly, it has become essential for a proctoring service to be able to hold large scale examinations hassle-free.

An effective live proctoring tool like iamneo.ai, today can ensure that you are able to conduct any type of exam (from MCQ tests for internal or mid-term to essay or programming type finals) for as many as 1000-2000 students concurrently.

Authentic, Error-Free Results – There are many ways in which students try to cheat in an exam — be it online or offline. But with technology, it has also become easier to catch them and/or stop them from doing so.

Human Touch – As students attempt their exams alone in a room with no physical proctor looking over them, online exams might make the students anxious and the exam-taking experience creepy. But, the method of live proctoring is the closest to making the online test-taking experience more humane.

The fact that you can attempt high-stakes examinations from the comfort of your homes and can reach out to a live proctor at any point in your examination for any guidance makes this method very suitable for high-stakes exams.

Non-Intrusive – Live proctoring method enables the proctor or administrator to analyse from 1-40 students’ exam screens at a time, depending on how advanced the proctoring tool is. The focus of the proctor will be divided among many students and not just one.

When the proctor feels the need to focus on one student’s feed — because of an indication of suspicious activity, or for doubt clarification, the proctor can intervene and help them if the proctoring tool allows them to.

The Future of Online Education

The online exam proctoring can be easily integrated onto any website or Learning management system according to the needs and wants of the client. Nowadays, monitoring candidates from the remotest areas with the help of the latest AI powered online proctoring technology is lending much needed credibility to the assessments.

Furthermore, e-learning is being continuously adopted in higher education institutions and corporations and it is also being progressively adopted in many K-12 institutions. The flexibility, functionality and robust security of online learning allows the users to complete courses efficiently, and more importantly, stay engaged. With the huge rise in the demand for e-learning, online proctoring has become a significant solution among all the end users. The e-learning platforms are providing much needed flexibility of use, which is adding to the selling point for online courses.

A high-stakes exam holds the power to change someone’s whole life and professional career. So, making the exam-taking process as comfortable as possible works best for both you and the students. Having a robust live proctoring platform with the latest features, security measures and reliability makes live proctoring method an excellent and reliable choice.
To know more about the platform which is trusted by clients across the country, check out https://iamneo.ai/about-us/