Remote learning has multiple vulnerabilities for educators to watch out for while conducting online exams. For instance, students nowadays are hiring online exam takers from Online Exam Help UK platforms to ace their exams. Consequently, students are disinterested in education and refrain from learning because why not, when you can get online exam help?
However, teachers are well aware of this fact and struggle to design the most secure form of online exams. In contrast, technology has leveraged them with online exam proctoring tools to conduct online exams with maximum security and decrease the chances of exploiting with external help. This is yet not the solution as there are hacks to override the proctoring tools and still cheat in the exams. Educators must take some rightful measures to ensure the security of online exams and prevent students from cheating.
How Students Can Prepare for an Online Proctored Exam?
How? Let us dive into solving the misery with ways to maximize online exam security for a fair assessment.
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Design Smart Questions
Often teachers design question papers with conventional questions from the textbook. Little do they know that all their solutions are available online. Besides, it is also convenient for online exam takers to answer those questions. Therefore, design the online exam with questions that require thinking, analysis, and evaluation.
In the case of numerical questions, change the entire data and requirement of the question. To emphasize, avoid copy-pasting the question from textbooks or the internet. In the same way, educators generate a plagiarism report to check the assignments of students, they should make unique questions.
Tip: Google the question and ensure it is unavailable to prevent students from cheating.
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Set Bold Guidelines
Present transparent guidelines for online exams to students and warn about the consequences if caught cheating. Inform them that they are their pride in the academic integrity of the educational sector. Teach them the ethics and their part in taking online exams honorably without any external help. Make them realize that you are aware of the online exam help services.
Set strict guidelines and explain to them how the online exam software works. Let them know that it can detect their movements with an eye-tracking feature and kick them out of the session if anyone tries to open other tabs. As a result, students get concerned and thus, prepare well for the online exam.
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Divide And Conquer
Use the divide and conquer technique to enhance security in online exams. Create variations of a question paper and randomize them among the students so that they cannot share the answers. Using the same questions increases the chance of collaboration during the online assessment.
Creating different question papers for each student can be a daunting task. Therefore, distribute students into groups, for example, there are 30 students. Divide them into 3 groups, each with 10 students. Now you have to create 3 different question papers. In effect, students will be unable to communicate answers during the exam.
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Choose The Best Proctoring Exam Software
As mentioned earlier, there are several online exam proctoring tools to invigilate students during the remote examination. This software can detect human interaction during online exams and prevent them from cheating. Once the exam is started, the tool opens in a full-screen mode disabling the candidates from opening other tabs for online exam help. Hence, anyone who tries to switch between tabs will be kicked out of the exam automatically, notifying the invigilator.
The AI of the proctoring software is so powerful that it lets only authorized candidates inside the online exam session – avoiding impersonation. The data is recorded beforehand to ensure that the actual student is taking the exam. Besides, a reliable proctoring tool has a live automated proctoring feature that detects intervention during the exam and offers one-on-one chat between the invigilator and the student.
In addition, invigilators must review any misconduct during the online exam, ensuring the integrity of the educational institute and the academics of a student. There can be several reasons for a student getting kicked from the session other than cheating. The AI is still a machine no matter how powerful it gets, it can misjudge and fail to differentiate between potential and actual misconduct. Look out for the red flags to ensure a fair assessment.
Ending.
The harshness of the pandemic and traditional ways of teaching has provoked the disinterest of students in education. Therefore, things have to change to retain the interest of students in academics for effective learning and conducting online examinations. Besides, leverage the exam proctoring software and these strategies to ensure security in online exams.