Proctoring is a technology-based way of authenticating a student’s identity that might include tracking the student through a certain portion of the course, generally during evaluations.

What Exactly Is Proctoring?

Proctoring is essentially a verification and supervision service in which learners have monitored either life or with the use of technology. Live proctoring (the monitoring of learners’ written assessments on pcs or tablets by examiners) has been there for many years and precedes technology-based proctoring. To explain, and as an example, live proctoring is still used in the aviation industry today. To discourage cheating, student pilots often “write” exams on a computer in an assessment center, where each machine is watched live and in situ by an invigilator. In contrast, with the development and enhancement of technology, the technological approach typically becomes a real and widespread substitute for real invigilation proctoring.

Due to the obvious COVID-19 pandemic, students have been forced to engage in eLearning, and technological proctoring has become common in schools, colleges, and universities. Similarly, enterprises are increasingly relying on proctoring to guarantee the integrity of crucial and risk-bearing assessments is reliably maintained in a distant location. “Technological proctoring” will be alluded to simply as “proctoring” throughout this text.

Advantages and disadvantages of proctoring

The benefits and usefulness of proctoring can be distilled into four fundamental benefits:

1. Assessment facilities can essentially be eliminated, which also applies to physical invigilators.
2. As a result, time and travel expenses are drastically minimized.
3. Increased amounts of evaluation validity are maintained in a reproducible manner.
4. Assessment takers’ efficient and honest records may be kept in perpetuity.

According to the benefits listed above, the argument for proctoring appears to be compelling. Yet, there is still strong opposition to proctoring, which is often justified:

• Proctoring is not governed, which means that each proctoring provider is available to record and apply whatever they deem fit and appropriate, from face recording to keypress logging, acoustic capturing to screen capture recording—the list is bleakly endless and frequently toes the line of what is moral.
• User information, like face recordings and screenshots, are typically sent from the Learning Management System toward a third-party proctoring platform, which uses technology to validate and verify a user. The management and control of this institutional data by a third party is a major problem and risk. This includes the dependability and speed with which the proctoring is completed—both of which are frequently found deficient.

• Similarly, many consumers are simply uneasy about having an outside, unfamiliar, and maybe improperly trained or prepared company serve as the jury in their evaluation.
• Finally, consider scalability. Administrative problems are not widespread, particularly among major corporate customers, such as those in the monetary services sector.

These worries are not without merit, and they have the potential to become a proctoring show-stopper. Fortunately, there is a substitute to conventional proctoring in the form of Sustainable Upskilling Solutions SUSs.

Correct Proctoring

When opposed to a typical Learning Management System, SUSs take a slightly distinct strategy for Learning and Development, especially evaluation. A typical Learning Management System is primarily concerned with aggregating and transmitting content electronically to learners, as well as top-line assessment (and thus reporting)—and that is all. SUSs, on the other side, provide enterprises with a comprehensive framework for easily and effectively training and assessing their whole workforce. This page discusses the distinctions between these two kinds of processes in further detail.

Proctoring is incorporated into, or incorporated into, a SUS, instead of being bolted on and conducted by any 3rd person. This indicates that the firm has complete authority over who gets exposure to proctored information and what happens to it in the end. Users are also assured that this information does not leave the organization’s SUS, which guarantees lightning-fast proctoring action in addition to reduced security risks. This is further supported by the robust and durable structure on which SUSs are designed, ensuring that companies have a scaled proctoring experience.

One significant advantage of SUS proctoring is the ease with which it is conducted, including the idea upon which it is founded. Face recording, keystroke logging, sound source capture, screenshot recording, and the blocking of tabs and other software are theoretically not difficult tasks to complete, but they are disputed and problematic. Given the many operating systems, browsers (including deployed versions), and management systems that business users use, the “disabling of windows and other software” is more of a salesman’s promise than a solid reality. Should a company capture the person’s screen or log every keystroke? What would happen if a user needed to make an urgent bank wire transfer to top up information during the evaluation process? Should the organization have access to the customer’s bank balance? Should the organization be permitted to log the user’s bank profile information, including login details?

This might readily become a possibility with key logging. As an illustration, where does this behavior begin, and where does it stop? What happens if a company uses 2 kinds of proctored evaluations: one which allows references and the other does not? This would imply that the third-party proctoring technology must be capable of properly catering for both eventualities, allowing windows or other programs to be active during one assessment while strictly prohibiting them from being open in another. The above-mentioned concerns are just a handful of many that raise endless questions about a seemingly easy difficulty, stopping consumers from deceiving during an evaluation.

The assessment is the simplest step in tackling this situation. If a person is appropriately ready to write an evaluation, they ought to be able to do so within a reasonable amount of time (after all, there is a cause to why most material assessments are time-regulated). If a user is given enough time to investigate the response to plagiarize or study the answer, the sufficiency and content of the assessment framework itself must be questioned.

The second, albeit more parallel, stage in resolving the problem is how the assessment is provided. This page goes into greater depth about SUSs assessing abilities. In brief, a SUS assures that no evaluation is alike by using question banks and question selectors, which reduces cheating even further.

Finally, there is proctoring. SUSs have set a line in the sand and sided with biometrics solely, given that it is sufficient in showing that a user, who is verified against an identification certificate, remained in front of their computer for the length of the evaluation. Extending proctoring beyond this stage is redundant, immoral, and potentially futile.

If a user is truly motivated to scam, they will. If a user is unable to open another window on their computer to look for a solution, they will utilize their smartphone to do it. If a user is unable to speak with another person to acquire an answer, they will use the messaging capabilities on their tablet. The listing goes on and on.

Proctoring should assure that learners are aware that a high level of accuracy and repetition is required. Going over and above what is socially tolerable may only contribute to shoving proctoring into the garbage bin of failed technologies, with assessment centers being the favored order of the day once more. One can use a cannon to kill a fly, but one typically accomplishes more by doing less, which is commonly shared by users who are subjected to numerous proctoring alternatives.