Online Assessment Techniques for Colleges

Universities have faced a whiplash with the abrupt change regarding classroom assessment techniques, from traditional methods of in-person examinations to attempting them online from a remote area.

Sounds of pen scribbling on papers has been replaced by squinted eyes and rapid pressing of keyboards worldwide. 

For instance, Imperial College  in London had its 280 medical students successfully complete their final-year exams online, which was historic in the field of medical students use vr in their college.

This has now become a norm, and we’re here to explore the techniques that colleges can use to conduct exams online.

Background

One would be quick to assume that the pandemic was the cause of students having to resort to using technology to complete their education.

However, in 2017, 4.6 million students in public institutions participated in distance education in some capacity, where 3 million students enrolled in at least one distance education course and 1.6 million enrolled exclusively in distance education courses.* 47% of students chose online degree programmes in 2018. 

This shows that studying online has been ideal to quite a few before the onset of the pandemic.

However, in 2021, there have been various types of online assessments and exams that are secure and thus preferred worldwide.

What’s new?

Colleges are witnessing issues of continuing academic integrity in order to save their brand value, managing students in multiple time zones, providing adequate resources for those with disabilities and making sure that students have the required technology to take up assessments online.

Facial recognition is a feature that can be used to cross-check the identity of students on campus and online.

However, with the introduction of this new technology, new concerns about security have come up too. To address these concerns and ensure the integrity of online assessment techniques for college, it is essential to implement efficient methods.

Techniques to conduct online assessments successfully

1. Browsers that will monitor your actions

Safe browsers prevent students from opening any other tabs to view answers in the middle of an examination. The candidate is asked  to strictly stay confined to the examination window.

In case they switch the tabs or windows, it will be brought to the notice of proctors, and they can suspend the examination. Some platforms do not allow even keyboard shortcuts for copy, paste and screen capture.

2. Assuring Authenticity Using Online Tools

In order to prevent plagiarism or cheating, there has been a significant increase in usage of tools like Turnitin and Respondus by VR for higher education colleges. The aforementioned tools aim to help maintain the academic integrity of online exams.

There has been a 40% increase in utilization of Canvas so far, and there is a major rise in the use of interactive conferencing and videos in general.

3. Proctoring Students From A Remote Area

Remote Proctoring is invigilating an online exam from any location in the world either through the aid of Artificial Intelligence, an experienced human proctor or both.

They emulate the role of an on-site proctor to ensure that no malpractices are followed. Proctoring can be achieved through various steps as mentioned below:

Capturing Image of Candidates

The platform being used or the system captures images of the candidate appearing for the exam after certain intervals, say every 30 seconds.

This helps for record purposes, to identify and authorize exam candidates and ensuring that they aren’t cheating in the exam. location.

Live Streaming the Examination 

Proctors can keep an eye on the students in real-time by streaming them writing their exam. In case of movements, the AI flashes messages such as “The candidate is looking away from the screen”, or “The candidate is making suspicious movements.”

Capturing Screens of the Answer Sheet

Proctoring can be done by taking screenshots of the screens on which the student is writing the exam. This can be kept in record in case of malpractices. 

Voice Proctoring

The proctor can also listen to the surroundings of the student  attempting the exam in order to ensure that the disadvantage of blind spots of a web camera is bridged. The voice is also recorded in the system for verification purposes.

4. Data Encryption 

Data encryption has gained significance in today’s time, playing an eminent role in ensuring that unauthorized access to question papers set by colleges remains restricted.

It ensures that students will not get any extra marks without any valid credentials.

It is a significant feature to ensure that all assessments are conducted in a completely secure environment. Any kind of  communication between the server and the examination candidate is also encrypted.

High-level encryption algorithms which cannot be decoded easily are used. This is to prevent any kind of paper leaking and maintaining utmost confidentiality. 

5. Classic Classroom Tricks 

Some of the less tech-savvy techniques for online assessment for ar in higher education students would be to incorporate questions that require High Order Thinking Skills. Questions must be prepared such that a Google search must not fetch them easy answers.

They must not be able to find it in their reading materials either. Instead, they should get the students to think and apply concepts on their own. 

Teachers can offer various sets of question papers and change the sequence of questions to students to minimize the chances of malpractices.

Online assessment techniques for college have evolved to address academic integrity concerns. Making students sign an academic integrity contract is also a new technique being used these days for online assessments.

Not making the marks scored by students available immediately after finishing a test, but revealing it a few days after the test would be ideal.

That way, after the testing window, is closed by students, they will not be able to see their scores and thus, will not be able to help other students that are yet to finish the test. 

Conclusion

Industries globally are now capitalizing on digital technologies that can help navigate through the seemingly endless problems of online education and online assessments, especially in higher education colleges.

But we’re just scratching the surface here. The tip of the iceberg is so miniscule that companies are yet to explore the potential in this market. iXR Labs will continue to strive to keep up with the updates and education tech trends in this field.