Cheating is considered to be the activity which helps the people to take undue advantages in an exam. All the students who are caught cheating in the exams have to face a lot of consequences for their acts. With the introduction of proctoring services, the security and integrity in the process of conducting the exam have significantly increased which has eliminated the issues like cheating. This has very easily integrated the whole management system with the concept of proctoring so that goals can be achieved. The concept of proctoring is highly essential, and the proctoring services are need of the hour.
A proctor is in charge of conducting and monitoring the exam using an online based program. He or she has a huge influence on the validity of the whole test and ensures that the whole process is undertaken with a high level of honesty and following the codes of conduct and rules and regulations. Another feature of online based remote proctoring is it helps them to easily reach beyond the geographical locations and remove the constraint of location. Because of this, any student by sitting anywhere can appear in an exam and what is required is just a high-speed based internet connection.
Combination of technologies like video-based software and software-based monitoring has helped to overcome the disadvantages of the traditional based exams. In the earlier times, one had to book a hall, inform all the associated candidates and then come the task of supervising the exam. After that, they had to evaluate all the obtained copies and then they had to declare the results. The whole process was very time-consuming and very much complex. Innovation in the whole industry of e-learning helped to obtain a high level of professionalism during the whole process. This has enabled people to learn new skills with a huge level of transparency in the whole system. Many institutions are realizing the importance of such systems and have been depending upon them for various programmes.
Software is required to conduct this kind of exam along with the computer or a laptop, a web-based camera so that details can be recorded and a good artificial intelligence system so that students can be monitored during the exam. This will help to validate the record of the people and will also help to maintain integrity-based mechanisms of the whole system. This has offered a lot of advantages to both the institutions as well as for all the candidates.
The features of online proctoring-based services have been mentioned as follows:
1. It is based upon a proper authentication process: The steps of authentication are to be done at the time of actual test. The candidate who has to appear for a particular test has to verify that he is the one who had applied to appear in the particular exam. This can be done with the help of facial recognition or biometric and many more ways. After the registration has been successful, then the candidate is allowed to sit in the exam. All this procedure is undertaken with the help of matching all the biometrics and facial recognition. After this step, the authorities are fully ensured that the right person has appeared for the exam. This will help in authenticating the whole process.
2. It is also based upon the tolerance of browsers: The whole procedure of conducting this kind of test is based upon browsers. One has to browse various tabs at a single time to open the test window so that he or she can appear well in the exam. This is a very essential process and helps to conduct the exam transparently.
3. It is based upon authority and control: The proctor has all the rights of pausing and entering the test. The copy-paste features are also disabled in this so that content is never leaked. In case any of the candidates is found cheating or doing some of the suspicious activities then he or she will be issuing alerts as red flags on the screen. This whole procedure is very much technology-friendly and efficient and provides a large number of merits to both the institution and the candidate.
4. The reports are generated efficiently: Two types of reports are generated in this kind of test. One is for the person conducting the exam and another for candidate. The reports include a performance in a summarized form along with the percentage of the whole scores and the section-wise percentage also with the section-wise summary. The report for the person conducting exam is available both online as well as in offline formats. The online version is much more comprehensive as includes various sections and a proper analysis of existing skills and knowledge base of the candidate. Even the recording of the whole exam is also present there. Question-wise data and analysis is also present which helps the proctor to make various decisions. In the off-line version, this is just a printout of the online report and images are there instead of the video-based recording in this form.
One must always invest in a particular system which provides the best quality features. The recorded form of video is one of the most important features in this system. Because of this, the examiner can see all the activities from the very beginning to the very end and also highlight the areas which require red flags to be raised so that the whole system is properly maintained and managed. The whole system works in a two-faced manner. In the very first phase, the candidate has to fill all the details associated with him and then he has to appear for the particular exam using a web-based camera and a mike. On the other hand, the proctor is there who is informed about any kind of suspicious activity so that proper and timely action can be taken. The comprehensive report is prepared which is sent to the proctor so that he or she can very well analyse the performance.
Hence, this concept of proctoring services is very much important and effective in all fields.