The Instruments of Online Proctoring

In this piece, I continue the discussion of the crucial dimensions to consider in practice with online proctoring (the first article was about the intensity of verification and is available here). Below I go through the second dimension crucial for online proctoring – the tools used for proctoring.

There are also several groups of instruments that are normally used by practitioners in online learning to verify the identity, behavior, and diligence of the students.

No tools or basic online statistics

First, the easiest way is when almost no special tools are used at all. Depending on the requirements of the educational program no control can be deemed acceptable. If the learning materials are placed online some statistics can be gathered from the pages that the students go through. The standard web pages statistics applications are used. A proctor or a data analyst can see how many pages students go through, to what extent the content is studied, and what time people visiting spend time on the pages.

Actions recording

The second group of tools is using video and audio recording in order to monitor actual student behavior. Obviously, some sort of software needs to be employed, data storage servers reserved, permission to record granted, and some other formalities put in order. Screen recordings allow seeing in detail what pages the students go through and how they behave. Applying this group of tools uses students’ camera, microphone, and access to their computer screen working space.

AI

Finally, there are some more advanced tools that use artificial intelligence (AI) instruments in order to see and construe the way students behave. In general, AI-related tools use some advanced software to replace the human proctor in the process of viewing, understanding, interpreting behavior, and then making the decision whether this or that student acted acceptably or not. The examples of this set of tools include:

• facial recognition and student identification;
• voice recognition and transcribing voice data into texts;
• verification of other people present based on video and audio data;
• camera recording of the moves of the student’s eyes and mouth;
• keyboard keys usage;
• computer mouse movements.

Most of the AI tools use some or all these technologies in a combined complex way. This allows having several checks that can be applied and thus making the AI’s decision more certain.

To sum up, the tools employed in the process of online proctoring vary greatly. The range includes the most basic instruments used for the minimal understanding of student behavior, as well as more complex technologies to record and interpret student actions during the class employing both human and AI evaluation.