Integrity of online examination
I am beginning to build on-line coursework and have great concerns regarding exam integrity. Does anyone have any suggestions in this area? I did read one forum suggestion which indicated online work leading to in-class examination. I am curious as to other suggestions for protecting integrity.
Cheryl:
In-class exams works well for students in the same locale. For students who reside in locations from which it is not convenient to travel to the school, proctored exams conducted at a facility in or close to their area are more practical. Proctored exams are also practical for international students.
Satrohan
It is difficult to protect the integrity of on-line exminations. As on-line teaching continues to grow I believe the need to have proctored exams will grow as well. However, it is nice have the belief that the adults taking the on-line courses are taking them to gain the knowledge the course has to offer.
Debra:
I share your expectation that adults taking online courses do so with a genuine purpose. This should be the case particularly when the courses are related to professions. It is very difficult to manage and prevent plagiarism in an online environment. Plagiarism is likely to be more common with younger students. All of the programs on which I have worked are graduate programs geared towards professions Some examples are Health Care Management, Educational Leadership,Criminal Justice, Insurance Management, Occupational Therapy, and Paralegal Studies. Most of the students who enroll in these programs are already in a profession. They pursue these higher degrees with a purpose to upgrade their skills and reach to higher positions in their profession; so they do dedicate a significant amount of effort towards learning. Having said all of this, proctored exams will remove all doubts from anyone's mind.
Satrohan
Cheryl;
One of the items I cover in my traditional classroom is integrity, as a student and human being. If students are aware you charge them to uphold a higher standard 95% of the time they will live up to those expectations. One suggestin I can make is to preface the examination with an integrity statement .
Excellent suggestion Rhonda. As a matter of fact, one institution for which we develop online courses have included its policy on integrity in their Syllabus; and it has repeated the relevant clauses before each Assignment and Exam. Students cannot access these course components unless they acknowleedge that they have read the policy on integrity.
Satrohan
Thank you Satrohan. I find that there are students who will try to take short cuts, or find ways to bring situations to their advantage. I feel that as Educators we must stress the importance of integrity as a policy and a good character trait. The institutions that have those intergrity policies prior to Assignments and Exams are constantly informing the students of the High standards they expect from everyone in the organization.
Rhonda:
We have reviewed the manner in which we can implement the policies the institutions have requested, and have concluded that they serve just as reminders. There is still no guarantee that the person who agrees to the policu before they proceed to complete and Assignment or an Exam is the person who registered for the course. The only solution is proctored exams though many institutions find this impractical.
Satrohan
Cheryl,
That's a hard question to answer because we hope that all students demonstrate integrity in completing their work and in taking exams. I can understand how proctoring exams is a good solution; however, I'm not sure how that could occur in an online environment (unless there was a designated school in which students would show up to a computer room and take the exam).
I took an online course and one of the requirements was that the exams were taken in a classroom. The reasoning was for the integrity of taking the exam. I can understand the reasoning; however, it was frustrating to have to go somewhere to take an exam when I was taking an online course.
Charlotte:
Proctored exams are usually delivered in a designated location----could be a school or another convenient location. Several measures are usually taken when private companies administer the exams to ensure accurate identity, and access tot he results of the exams as well as the content of the exams themselves---questions as well as student answers. In short, proctored exams done in an online environment are administered in a secured manner, at least the ones I know of.
Satrohan
Satrohan,
Thanks for your insight to proctoring exams. It's good to know that integrity measures have been taken to when administering online exams.
I agree Debra, but I always point out that the only one who loses on an exam if not taken honestly is the person taking the exam.
I teach online classes for a University that used to use proctored exams. The problem is it takes an extremely long time for the exams to get from the facility to the University then to the Instructor to get them graded and returned to the school. WOW! That’s a lot of transportation cost involved. When the school stopped this process, it directly put millions to the bottom line and the exam averages are about the same.
Mark:
This is a very interesting observation. I am assuming that the reason it took that long is that students completed paper-based exams. One institution I know of has proctored exams that are completed online at the proctor site. No delays have been experienced so far. Things seem to have been going well.
Satrohan
Yes, That is correct. They did use paper exams. Allowing the student to take the course exam available on the web site in front of a proctor would be a better idea. Then the only expense would be paying the proctor, which could be passed on to the students to pay at time of exam. This would alleviate the University from having to manage the payments.
The students that I teach take daily tests that allow them to move from level to level. We don't have traditional final exams. We do have a licensing exam that is administered several times a year, depending on what state you work in.
So we depend on daily tests, and they will have to be online tests. Anybody can learn to cheat. Our traditional students learn how, and our online students will also learn.
Well, they will learn to cheat if they choose to do so. Some make that choice.
Those who cheat can make it through school, but they will never pass their state certification exam.
In the end, they cheat themselves.
Stephen:
Agreed. Cheating is a personal choice. In your case, I believe cheating will lead to failure; you have the state certification exam as the safety net. Strategically positioned online tests to verify mastery of the learning is a definite asset.
Satrohan
I agree that integrity is important in all aspects of the education process - not just with quizzes and tests, but with assignments also. We try to change the assignments and quiz questions as much as possible after each time they are given, but that requires a lot of work making new answer keys! And new questions are not as reliable - they can get too detailed as we run out of ideas for questions.
We give quizzes that can be taken over, we give timed quizzes, and we give proctored final exams on paper. This works the best. Students are less likely to copy quizzes that can be accessed multiple times, and proctored finals are always the best. The only quiz at risk is the timed one. However, most students are too concerned with the time to try to find ways to cheat.
Sheri
Sheri:
You're quite right about the timed quizzes. And yes; there is a limit to the number of questions you can create for a single learning objective when you have to abide with the rules for test item construction. My opinion; you have th ebest combination.
Satrohan
My conmcern is that the rifght person took the exam. It is very easy to give your password to someone else. I have not been able to insure that except with proctors. This could become very difficult if you have only a few from same area. firgerprints? Not manh people have these capabilities
