Protecting Your Academic Integrity With Proctoring

In today’s world of online learning and online assessments, proctoring is a valuable resource for higher education institutions to protect their academic integrity.

Academic integrity  means acting with the values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility in learning, teaching and research.

Proctoring of online exams, utilizing the latest advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning, helps to uphold these values, as it has been proven to reduce cheating and make assessments more accurate.

How does proctoring work?

Proctoring monitors a test-taker during an exam via their webcam, which records images of them and their environment while the exam takes place. A recording of the exam session is provided to the institution’s instructor should there be any ‘flagged’ incidences (i.e. suspicious behaviour) that needs to be reviewed, during or after the exam.

The first step in a proctored exam is to authenticate the identity of a test-taker – that is, to ensure the test-taker undertaking the exam is the person that should be.

Why is protecting academic integrity (using proctoring for online exams) important?

For institutions

Proctoring strengthens the validity of academic programs and the institution that offers them. It is an important part of the accreditation process.

Institutions must safeguard their online programs and the integrity of their exams process in order to protect their brand. Proctoring helps protect an institution’s reputation (which attracts students to them) – and their future (with institutions relying on students fees for their viability).

For test-takers

Academic integrity is important to test-takers as they need assurance that they are being certified by a reputable organization. Proctoring helps test-takers protect their investment in learning ­– so they know they are being accredited fairly and appropriately.

Many test-takers/students pay for online programs and certifications, and then pay again for proctored exams, so they need (and deserve) qualifications and certifications that are valuable and they can trust. This is particularly important for their employment and promotion prospects.

Where to start?

It is important for institutions to help test-takers recognize that embracing academic integrity – the values of honesty, trust, fairness, and respect – is important to achieving success.

Clear, well-defined academic integrity principles that guide test-takers in appropriate digital behaviours will aid them in being responsible digital citizens.

Two key ways proctoring protects academic integrity

1. Deter: Solutions like Sumadi make it extremely difficult for test-takers to cheat (a sophisticated proctoring solution can easily identify prohibitive behaviors. This alone can deter test-takers from attempting to cheat).
2. Detect: Our solutions can accurately identify prohibitive behaviors as they occur (our intuitive analytic dashboards and reports are generated in real time, allowing evaluators to detect unwanted and suspicious behavior, which can be reviewed during or after an exam).

 How do Sumadi solutions help protect academic integrity?

Our solutions help deter test-takers from cheating and detects cheating through:

• Biometric face profiles and authentication – verifies the registered test-taker to confirm they are the correct person
• Webcam monitoring – conducts secure and continuous monitoring of test-takers throughout an entire online exam, analyzing and processing images in real time
• Object detection – detects objects that are not allowed during an online exam with computer vision, machine learning capabilities
• Typing biometrics – identifies a test-taker’s typing patterns, style, rhythm, and pressure
• Secure browser – stops a test-taker from using any software (apart from what’s allowed in the exam) should they be tempted to search from answers
• AI flagging – recognizes and acts on suspicious behavior
• Audio and video monitoring – including room scans, and second camera in the exam room
• Active banned applications – detect and block any applications and services that are not allowed during an exam

SUMADI’s solutions are a valuable resource to help institutions uphold academic rigor, exam integrity and the quality standards that are expected of them – by significantly reducing the potential for test-takers to cheat in an online exam. Our solutions offer great functionality and user experience, are scalable, cost-effective and available in seven languages.

To find out more, contact us at: sales@sumadi.net