The global pandemic caused by COVID-19 peaked during a time when many schools and universities hold year-end exams. For many students around the world, these year-end exams represent very high-stakes, results of which are typically used to determine the progress of a student in the education system.
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 such as The Imperial College, London, and the Advanced Placement exams offered by the College Board to take the leap of faith in technology to evolve the way education took place and start exploring online proctored examinations.
For high-stakes exams and critical certifications, there is an apprehension to adopt remotely proctored examinations as an authentic way of assessing students for the fear of cheating, as such exams make or break their future.
But many advanced proctoring tools, such as Talview Live Proctoring Software, ensure in numerous ways that your test-takers do not cheat on proctored exams. Having mechanisms such as a 360 degree environment check, automated plus manual flagging of malpractice, browser policing, face and voice detection, etc., along with carefully selected and well-trained proctors guarantee that the exams conducted through these platforms are highly reliable.
(You can learn more about Talview’s remote proctoring platform here.)
To top that, with emerging technologies and a variety of proctoring methods available (like automated, recorded, or live proctoring), you can even record all exam sessions and store them for audits or exam reviews in case you want to recheck any exam session at a later date. All this makes remotely proctored exams much more equipped to detect cheating and other malpractices than an in-person proctor.
Hence, given the circumstances, the question now is not whether to choose online examinations or not, but the specific type of proctoring that will fit best for your institution. And this blog post will tell you why live proctoring is the ideal method for conducting high-stakes exams. It covers the following topics:
Live remote proctoring is a method of remote proctoring where a qualified human proctor supervises an online exam in real-time via the test-takers’ webcam and computer screen feed.
The proctors are trained to ensure the authenticity of the student and look for any instances of malpractice during the exam that could indicate a compromise. This gives you more time to focus on other work while the proctor takes care of administering exams.
Certain proctoring software go one step further to ensure exam integrity and credibility by having several checks in place at regular intervals throughout the exam. Talview, for instance, allows you to hold a live proctored exam along with auto-proctoring feature enabled to be doubly sure of catching malpractice.
Proctor’s screen for the initial round of authentication on Talview's Proview Proctoring
For the exam to begin, the student is first required to fill in their details like name, date of birth, age, and gender to ensure student authenticity. Then, the student has to submit an ID proof for facial recognition. In the same step, the microphone and webcam are tested to avoid any errors or technical difficulties during the exam.
Once the initial authentication tests are complete, the real examination can begin.
Online exam proctoring vary in type depending on whether they are auto or live proctored, or pre-recorded.
For recorded exams, the proctoring software simply records the activities of the student while they are taking the exam. It is later played back by a proctor in fast-forward (3x to 20x speed) mode to check for any red-flags or suspicious activity.
Advantage: This form of proctoring doesn't require strict exam scheduling since the student can take the exam at any time and place.
Disadvantage: A proctor cannot take any live actions like warning the student, or suspending or terminating the exam. Recorded exams also don’t let the proctor go through multiple videos parallely, making it difficult to host high-stakes exams which are conducted for hundreds to thousands of students in one go.
Similarly, in automated proctoring, the audio-video and screen share feeds of the students are recorded during the test. Along with that, the system also monitors the student’s feeds for any suspicious activity and raises a flag using advanced audio and video analytics — which can be checked by a proctor or an exam controller.
Advantage: It eliminates both scheduling and location constraints. It also doesn't require human intervention, and, hence, it is scalable and more cost-effective — useful for schools and certification providers.
Disadvantage: While this form of proctoring is the best, most efficient, and sought-after method, it does not provide a very human experience of test-taking.
A comprehensive exam report revealing which exam was compromised from most to least
In live proctored exams, on the other hand, the student can take the exam as they would in a classroom setting — knowing that a proctor is there to help them out if they have any queries during the exam or catch them if they decide to cheat, as the proctor looks over the students or their exam screens at any given time.
This makes live proctored exams highly reliable, authentic, and scalable. Since one proctor can invigilate multiple exams at a time, you can have as many students as you want take an exam concurrently without worrying about a compromise on the results.
Since high-stakes exams are time-sensitive, catching or warning students attempting to cheat or helping the student if they get stuck anywhere becomes easy with live remote proctoring. It also helps the proctor address false positives in real-time and avoid wrongly terminating the exam for some students.
Also, the exam can be taken from anywhere at any time, reducing the burden of students to travel far to reach exam centers while also ensuring that the student attempts a big exam from the comfort of their home.
This works best for working students who otherwise have to take leave from work to travel long distances to reach the examination center.
Listed below are the key ways in which live online proctoring tools help you successfully conduct secure high-stakes online exams.
As the software detects such activities, it automatically raises a flag according to the severity of the act and records it in the video log of the student.
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.
As a leading remote proctoring software provider, Talview enables the proctor to chat with students while they attempt the exam. The proctor can send a message to any student that they are proctoring via the platform.
If the proctor catches a student engaging in suspicious activity, like looking away from the screen for too long or trying to talk to someone else in the background, they can simply send a message to the student asking them to stop before the proctoring software raises a flag or, in extreme cases, disqualifies the examination.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.
Apart from that, in many intuitive and smart proctoring tools, there are mechanisms put in place to ensure that the test environment is as conducive and non-intrusive for the student to perform their best.
High-stakes exams hold 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 along with a good bunch of well-trained proctors becomes the best measure of reliability for any exam and makes live proctoring method an excellent and reliable choice.