Joydev informs that to counter the Coronavirus pandemic that hit the education sector, assessment companies clubbed their remote proctoring solutions with AI-based live proctoring to make online examination transparent. An exclusive for Different Truths.

The ongoing Coronavirus pandemic has left the education system in a mystified state. Education institutions were among the first public gathering places that were closed down in early March in the wake of the rising Coronavirus cases. One never imagined even five months down the line things will be so uncertain. While some countries have re-opened the schools with utmost precautions, most of the countries still fear the spread of the virus in the schools. Amidst this uncertainty, one could not have ignored the future of the students, especially of those passing out batches, be it in school level, higher secondary, or college, and university level.

Education institutions were among the first public gathering places that were closed down in early March in the wake of the rising Coronavirus cases. One never imagined even five months down the line things will be so uncertain. While some countries have re-opened the schools with utmost precautions, most of the countries still fear the spread of the virus in the schools. Amidst this uncertainty, one could not have ignored the future of the students

The presence of various ed-tech tools came handy during the lockdown phase, which ensured continuous and quality learning for students. Almost every school and college resorted to online classes or digital learning; ensuring students don’t go out of the learning track. Though the solution to continuous learning was found, institutes and universities were wondering about the ways to assess students during online examinations. Rightly said, necessity is the mother of invention, and it was not too late when even a solution to this was found when assessment companies clubbed their remote proctoring solutions with AI-based live proctoring.

Let’s know what online proctoring is and how it works.

Online proctoring lets the test-giver digitally supervise an electronic/online assessment conducted through the Internet using the web camera. The combination of face-recognition AI software and an integrated web camera makes the proctoring possible, thus providing plenty of opportunities for online evaluations. This led the virtual teachers to become virtual invigilators, without putting any extra effort, and gaining the ability to recognize and approve candidates remotely, irrespective of their locations.

Online proctoring keeps an eye on every single examination session from start to end. Besides recording the video through a webcam, it also captures images, records desktop screens, chats, and logs. These are some safeguarding measures that protect both students and the proctors. The entire examination session is automatically monitored by video-enabled surveillance

Online proctoring keeps an eye on every single examination session from start to end. Besides recording the video through a webcam, it also captures images, records desktop screens, chats, and logs. These are some safeguarding measures that protect both students and the proctors. The entire examination session is automatically monitored by video-enabled surveillance, which flags any non-standard occurrence such as the candidate leaving the room or moving away from the web camera view.

How Does it Detect Cheating?

If you believe that giving an online exam is considerably easy and there are ways to cheat the invigilator, you are wrong!

The proctoring method in online examination makes it potentially difficult to deceive an invigilator than in a physical exam. The AI-based proctoring remotely track a candidate and also the contents present in the computer while, taking the examination. Before starting the exam, it verifies the identity of a candidate with AI-assisted facial recognition and tracking system.

The proctoring method in online examination makes it potentially difficult to deceive an invigilator than in a physical exam. The AI-based proctoring remotely track a candidate and also the contents present in the computer while, taking the examination. Before starting the exam, it verifies the identity of a candidate with AI-assisted facial recognition and tracking system. Among others, these are the occasions when the proctoring flags malpractice during online examination:

• When the candidate leaves the room
• When there are extra people in the room
• When the candidate looks down for a certain period of time, as it tracks the eye and head-movement too
• When foreign objects like mobile phones, books, etc. are there with the candidate. It’s possible tracked by the webcam.
• Any unauthorized use of the device during the examination
• When a proxy user gives the examination instead of the candidate

Why is Online Proctoring on Demand now?

Online proctoring has made online training, learning, and evaluation of assessment quite easy for both candidates and invigilators. Some benefits of online proctoring are:

• Less time is taken for marking and publishing results.
• Huge reduction of costs which otherwise was wasted on delivery of physical test papers, transportation of staff to and fro from the centres for evaluation, etc.
• No geographical barriers.
• Improves the efficiency of educational organisations.

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