Mature technology and increasing demand for distance learning have made online testing one of the most popular assessment methods in education and recruitment. Online tests can be used in schools or educational institutions to measure the learning effect of students. It can also be used in enterprise training to assess the training effect of employees or in professional certification examinations such as new employee recruitment. Despite the great convenience online exam offers, there is still limitations in the actual exam. This is why many schools and companies have been hesitant to conduct online exams: the high risk of exam cheating.
High Risk Exam Behavior
Common high-risk examination behaviors mainly include the followings.
- Plagiarism: Some test takers will switch screens to find answers when taking an online test or will copy other test takers’ answers to get a high score.
- Cheating: Candidates use a variety of methods to gain an undue advantage as a way to get a superior score to pass the exam. For example, using smart devices to find answers, searching for answers in books, etc.
- Impostor: A candidate takes the exam in the name of another person or hires another person to take the exam in his or her place.
- Malicious attacks:it means candidates using malicious means such as hacker attacks or computer viruses to interfere with the examination process or destroy the examination results.
These high-risk examination behaviors not only undermine the fairness of the examination, but also harm the interests of other candidates. In order to prevent candidates from successfully cheating, schools, enterprises, test centers and other institutions need to adopt various reliable security measures to ensure the fairness of the test.
Limitations of Online Exams
In addition to high-risk exam behaviors, there are other limitations to online examinations.
- Unconscionable exam system developers may leak information collected by the system from candidates.
- Due to the functional settings of the proctoring software, proctors may have the authority to operate candidates’ devices on some examination platforms, and candidates’ privacy is easily violated.
- Online exams are susceptible to the influence of the network, and in areas with unstable networks, exam interruptions are likely to occur.
- The stability of the examination platform is one of the important factors affecting the conduct of examinations.
Opportunities presented by online invigilator software
Even though there are many limitations in the practical application of online examinations, online proctoring software brings many opportunities due to the increasingly mature technology.
- Online exams are significant in reducing costs. All the steps of conducting the test only need to be implemented online, and there is no need to spend the cost of the test on paper test papers, test venues and the employment of invigilators.
- Improve exam flexibility. The use of online testing systems is on the rise. Online testing allows all candidates to take the test anytime and anywhere.
- Improve test efficiency. Quiz maker has a variety of intelligent test functions, such as automatic correction of test papers, test data analysis, etc., to reduce time and labor input.
- Ensure the fairness of online exam. There are anti-cheating features in a mature exam system. For example, monitor the test taker’s test behavior through the webcam; restrict the test taker to switch screens; turn on the microphone to monitor the test taker’s test environment, etc.
Exam systems providing online exam services
Online Exam Maker is an emerging online examination system that can provide professional examination services to users. The following exam features can meet the exam needs of most users, and users can invest minimal time in creating test papers.
☑ Anti-cheating features. Such as screen switching restrictions, full screen mode exam, sound detection, exam behavior detection, etc.
☑ Intelligent examination paper correction, examination data analysis.
☑ Test paper management, candidate management, course management, etc.