Home Etcetera Remote Proctoring: The Future of Examinations

Remote Proctoring: The Future of Examinations

Remote Proctoring: The Future of Examinations
Image by janeb13 from Pixabay

Remote schooling is the most prevalent new reality for both students and educators. With an abundance of technological tools designed for the internet, educational institutions can now design all their modules entirely for online use. Despite some difficulties, the knowledge gurus and specialists benefit from the obvious benefits of remote education, namely time savings, lesser costs for the institution, more consistency and repetition (due to recorded lessons), and more flexibility.

A BREAKTHROUGH TIME FOR REMOTE EDUCATION

According to recent market research, MOOC or the Massive Open Online Course niche will surge through more than $25 billion by the year 2025. There will be an unquenchable demand for digital learning and online courses. Parallel to this trend would also be the increasing need for remote proctoring platforms. We are all very familiar with digital learning and online courses, but are you familiar with remote proctoring?

All prevailing conditions point to the fact that there’s no way traditional learning will overtake remote learning, which is now the trend. It’s all apps and modules all over the place, with students from primary, secondary, vocational, collegiate, master, and doctorate programs all scrounging for slots in online classes to be able to earn their certifications.

It’s as simple as 1 plus 1. Because when online educators teach online, they would eventually give remote exams and tests. So logically, they would need proctors who are administering and overseeing the giving of the exams.

What do we remember when we were students in the traditional school when taking our exams and tests? We always have warm-blooded proctors or monitoring educators who hover over us like vultures during the exam period. They make sure we don’t cheat and execute some tactics to improve our grades.

This is impossible in the online administration of exams because the students are all in different locations. So here comes all these proctoring platforms, designed by well-meaning educators and entrepreneurs, who have foreseen the need for remote proctoring.

The developers of these programs know that students still have to take exams and tests. And they had the foresight to predict that for these exams to maintain their integrity, there should be vigilance when they take their online testing so that the measurement of their educational knowledge will still be measured with a standard of professionalism.

A recent study that involved engineering students has concurred that they would be more likely to cheat in an unproctored scenario than a proctored one. So it is but essential that proctoring platforms be taken seriously as part and parcel of online learning.

WHAT IS INVOLVED IN REMOTE PROCTORING?

REMOTE PROCTORING
Image by Orna Wachman from Pixabay

The students take an exam from their own different remote locations with the exam’s integrity still intact. The proctoring software will authenticate the students’ identities and monitors them through a webcam. The recorded video will then capture any suspicious behavior on the part of the students.

HOW EFFECTIVE IS REMOTE PROCTORING?

The software will continuously verify the examinees’ identities at all times and continuously try to scan and detect any academic misconduct. Tools will include multi-factor biometric recognition (ID scan, face scan, and even room scan), which starts when the examinees appear on the software’s database. The high-tech software should also have preventive mechanisms that block the students from connecting with web browsers and other kinds of applications before and during the tests.

SOME CHALLENGES ABOUT REMOTE PROCTORING

Being a relatively new education technology, the costs of remote proctoring might be prohibitive. Some students may find the biometric scans obtrusive and unfair because, as far as we know, technology can have glitches and relay error-filled data. The educational institution should also hear out fairly the student’s side being given penalties because of suspicion of cheating during the exams because a technical glitch might be the culprit.

REMOTE PROCTORING WILL BECOME A STAPLE NEED IN THE DECADES AHEAD

As remote learning trudges on, so does remote proctoring with it. There will be difficulties in the early stages. As the errors and the glitches being encountered are solved one by one, remote proctoring, which uses outstanding technological trends like A1 and Machine Learning, will be more seamless in the foreseeable future towards the administration of cheat-proof exams.

NO MORE EXAM CENTERS NEEDED

Just imagine the benefits for both the educators and the students. There is no need for an arrangement with an examination facility anymore. There is also no need for human proctors and the corresponding costs. It will be paperless, so it will be good for the environment and great for the school’s bottom line.

The exam’s integrity will even be more protected by a no-holds-barred remote proctoring software that doesn’t blink when students cheat and don’t comprehend what a plead for forgiveness is from students who eventually get rejected because of clear evidence of cheating. In other words, they could even be more effective than human proctors in upholding educational standards.

Featured Image by janeb13 from Pixabay