How leading university prevented cheating during online exams

Leading university prevented online exam cheating

Background

Social distancing norms are forcing education institutions to conduct online exams for all kinds of subjects. Most of the institutes have opted for multiple choice based questions (MCQ) based online exams.

Universities and institutes are also trying to identify new ways to conduct practical exams and theory/ subjective exams. 

Remote proctored exams are becoming new normal to manage examination processes for academic courses as well as professional courses.

Students are also getting used to the new situation. However there are some students who have found ways to cheat in proctored exams using hi tech methods.

Conducting Online Exam with Question Navigation

One of India’s reputed universities used technology to conduct online exams. Students were provided login and 1 hour time to appear for the exam within a certain duration of 3 hour window. Question navigation was enabled for the exam. 

It was a proctored exam. As question navigation was enabled, it allowed students to see all questions using navigation and then attempt each question one by one. Such settings might be vulnerable to cheating practice as students could logout from the exam window, browse for answers and then re-login. They could do this multiple times during online exam.

As  a result of such exams, no students getting more than 90% marks have increased considerably for those exam sessions of the university. 

Average students also got more marks in this exam. If more number of students gets such high marks then question marks would be raised over the authenticity of the online exam process.

Setting per Question Timer for cheating Prevention 

Per question timer for online exam

Based on the experience of previous online exams, the university decided to implement a per question timer for the online exam using Eklavvya platform.

 

Define Per Question Timer for Online Exam
  • Online Question Paper was set with timing for each question set to 60 seconds
  • Students were shown question only for 60 seconds on the screen
  • Student is expected to attempt question in that stipulated time only
  • For mathematical calculation oriented questions , timer for each question can be set to 120 seconds or 180 seconds
  • Students were unable to move forward or backward to see questions
  • System used randomization approach and only one question was visible on the screen
  • There were 2 timers, one for entire exam and another for each question
  • Proctoring method ensured that system captured video, audio , images of the student attempting the exam
Per Question Timer during Online Exam Process to prevent cheating

Facial Detection using AI 

Facial Recognition during Online Exam

Due to the proctoring techniques, the University was also able to identify if the person is present in front of the web camera continuously during the online examination process. System was able to recognize if more than one person is present or if no person is present in front of the camera.

It helped to prevent online examination cheating or any other exam malpractices during online exams.

Result of the Online Exam with per question Timer

Per question timer implementation resulted in the fair result of the online exam. University conducted million+ exam sessions for its 150,000+ students. Here are some of the statistics of the exam result.

Online Exam Result Analysis
  • Less than 3% of the students achieved more than 90% of the marks in the exam
  • 15 % students failed in the exam
  • Very few number of students got more than 80% of the marks
  • Result was according to expected or traditional offline exam results which followed standard deviation with the majority of the students being in the range of 40 to 65% of the marks.

Want to conduct Fair Exams to test Knowledge of the students ?

Here is the success strategy to conduct online exam in a fair and cheating free manner

  • Define Per Question Timer for the exam. Per question timer forces students to attempt questions in specified time. Chances of malpractice reduces completely.
  • Use AI Proctoring process to validate student
  • Question bank should be designed to test analytical ability, thinking capacity of the student 
  • Quality of multiple choice questions should be able to force students to study with conceptual knowledge
  • Keep combination of subjective/ theory and objective (multiple choice ) questions during the exam

Success Story of Eklavvya  Platform to conduct fair online exams

online exam success factors

Eklavvya platform has been used by many universities across the world to conduct fair and cheating free online exams. 

We have built in AI algorithms and configurations to define online exam with per question timer, question / option shuffling, secure browser , subjective exams with diagrams uploading facility etc.

Leading universities have started implementation of useful features like per question timer to conduct fair online exams.

If you are looking to conduct online exams with the highest form of security then connect with us for the demo of our platform.

Eklavvya Online Assessment
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