In a bold move to curb cheating the Bihar school examination boards (BSEB) has banned students from entering the exam hall in shoes and socks. As over 17 lakh students sit for their board exams, at 1,426 exam centers, the decision by the BSEB to bar shoes and socks have been received with mixed reviews.
Bihar has a notorious reputation of mass cheating incidents, but still, the reputation of the preventive measures taken by institutions seems to be surpassing the former. For example, in the Muzaffarpur district of Bihar (yes Bihar can’t seem to catch a break), the sleeves of students were cut off with razors, leaving a lot of the female students distraught.
Talking of Muzaffarpur, in February 2016, army candidates sat in their underwear to take a written exam during a recruitment day. The bizarre anti-cheating measures are taking centerfold rather than the cheating students. Yet the crazy continues, when in Dharma Samaj Degree College in Aligarh, installed CCTV cameras in the men’s restrooms for preventing cheating in exams. The disturbing fact remains that the principal seems to defend this idea claiming the student’s privacy is still maintained.
The question arises whether stringent and absurd rules be implemented at the risk of distressing students or a better solution be found. So why not look at technology to offer better supervision and control over cheating. With internet access available even in the remotest areas of India and the Indian youth being tech-savvy, it is time to exploit tech-based proctoring services.
At Verificient, we measure integrity incidents during online exams. Proctortrack is the only fully-automated remote proctoring solution that continuously verifies the identity of online test takers. The highpoint of Proctortrack is that no human supervision is needed. Our objective is to protect the integrity of online programs and educational institutions.
Proctortrack is ProctorlessTM. Proctortrack’s automation creates a more consistent and reliable experience in comparison to human proctoring. The reduced operational cost is passed to our clients in more affordable proctoring fees. Our technology is ProctorlessTM and can detect when a candidate leaves a test, is replaced during a test, receives assistance from a friend or searches online for answers. Proctortrack detects various levels of deceit or misconduct defined by the institution and the framework of the test. In addition, our technology ensures there are no other hardware peripherals, restricted applications, banned keystrokes or virtual machines running in the background of any test takers devices during a test.
While other modalities of remote proctoring particularly those that involve a manual element pose a significant challenge for consistency in results at scale, Proctortrack is the only patented remote proctoring solutions that use large-scale machine learning to provide better accuracy. For instance, solutions relying on manual proctors like live call-center based proctoring and also record and review modality:
- Manual proctors often utilize a one-to-many ratio for monitoring candidates – unreliable
- Manual proctoring is often reliant unless there are high broadband speeds, for connectivity
- Manual proctoring requires candidates scheduling in advance of exam date to ensure proctor availability
- Additional costs associated or taking the test last minute unscheduled tests
- Cancellation fees for not showing up to the scheduled test window
- Waiting for proctors to start the testing session (often long waiting periods)
- Proctors changing in the middle of the testing session disrupt candidate performance
Education is undergoing a much-needed disruption all over the world, while India is falling behind. Online proctoring is a new concept in India but we can no longer sit back and watch cheating prevail. As institutions feel the increased pressure to protect against academic misconduct, Proctortrack can deliver scalable remote proctoring solutions at affordable prices, helping institutions of higher education ensure the integrity of their high-stakes online assessments.
