Is Automated Proctoring useful? How does it work?

Today’s online exams demand a new way to maintain academic integrity. Human proctors don’t cut it anymore. Sure, you can hire an individual proctor for each online exam-taker, but that’s expensive and impractical. Instead, harness the power of AI to automate proctoring. 

Keep reading to learn how auto proctoring will maintain academic integrity for a fraction of the cost of human proctors.  

What is proctoring? 

Proctoring is when you assign someone to supervise a candidate taking an exam. The proctor makes sure the student doesn’t cheat during the test. 

While proctoring doesn’t guarantee students don’t cheat, it drastically decreases their chances of successfully doing so. 

Proctors also perform other tasks, like verifying a student’s identity and addressing any disruptions during the exam. Traditionally, you’d have one to two proctors for a class of upwards of 50 students take an exam during one sitting. 

But modern students often give their exams online instead of a physical classroom. So you can’t employ a traditional proctor. Instead, you need automated online proctoring. 

Why can’t we use human proctors online? 

You can’t use human proctors online because online test-takers typically give their exams from different geographic locations. You’d need an individual proctor at each exam taker’s location to make human proctoring effective. That’s impossible. 

You could hire a single proctor to monitor multiple students giving their exams online via a webcam and microphone. This is also ineffective since a single proctor can’t effectively watch multiple live streams of test takers at the same time. This type of format also has privacy concerns from test-takers. 

So it’s not practical to use human proctors for online tests taken by multiple students, especially for a large exam. Your only solution is automatic online exam proctoring. 

What is automated proctoring? 

Automated proctoring is when you use AI software to monitor your students instead of a person. During an online proctored exam, your AI software will flag users for behavior considered suspicious, like talking to a friend or opening another application. 

Automated proctors, like AutoProctor, work using AI and machine learning to detect unacceptable behaviors and alert test creators. 

Since AI proctoring happens via software, it won’t experience the same problems as a human proctor. AI proctoring can simultaneously watch multiple test-takers. It doesn’t get tired. It doesn’t need rest. And you can scale it up as much as you want.

AI proctoring works just as effectively for 10 test takers as it does for 1,000. 

The benefits of AI proctoring 

AI proctoring has many practical benefits. AI proctors have less bias than human ones since the software simply flags predetermined behavior. It doesn’t take factors, like the student’s identity or background into account, unlike a human proctor potentially could. 

So test takers will experience the most fairness with AI proctoring. 

AI proctoring is also more cost-effective than human proctoring. You’ll just need to subscribe to a single AI proctoring tool, and you can scale up your needs from there. You won’t have to acquire new proctors when the number of test takers increases. 

You’ve learned why automated proctoring works, click here if you want to learn how AutoProctor works. 

Technical considerations for AI proctoring

AI proctoring is a great solution, but you should take these considerations into account: 

Privacy: AI proctoring is less privacy-invasive than online human proctoring.

Technical problems: Occasional technical glitches can disrupt exams. So ensure you subscribe to a high quality AI proctor that guarantees regular support. 

Accessibility: Students with disabilities may have issues adapting to an online proctor. So make sure you get an AI proctor that has options for children with disabilities. 

So is automated proctoring worth it? 

AI proctoring is the best way to maintain an online exam’s academic integrity. You can’t hire enough people to monitor hundreds or thousands of online test takers. So your best bet is AI proctoring. 

AI proctoring is cheaper, less invasive, and more scalable than human proctoring. But you have to choose the right AI proctoring service to build a secure test-taking environment.