There have been a couple of good articles recently concerning the security of exams, more specifically concerning exam material showing up on Facebook and other social media sites. A recent article in the Los Angeles Times reports that hundreds of photos of the state’s standardized exams have shown up online.
According to the article, not all of the nearly 100 students involved were attempting to cheat, as some photos depicted students posing with test booklets, but administrators will still concerned about the breach.
“Most of the images discovered so far contained only students posing with a closed test booklet, blank answer documents or answer documents with a message written on them,” the state Education Department said in a release quoted by the L.A. Times. However, some images “appeared to contain test questions or completed answer documents” from both the annual achievement tests and the state’s high school exit exam, which is required for graduation.
Modern cell phones with Internet connectivity pose an interesting challenge to educators due to their compact size and advanced data capabilities.
At ProctorU, it is company policy that exam candidates turn off and remove cell phones from their work area before beginning a test. Online proctors also require test-takers show them their work space by panning their webcam around the room 360 degrees and showing all desk surfaces. During the exam proctors watch for eye and body movement consistent with looking down at a cell phone or other materials in order to ensure the academic integrity of the exam. Proctors can also prevent students from taking screen shots of the exam by monitoring the test-taker’s computer activity. For more information on how online proctoring works, visit our website.
Despite a lull in blog posts, the team at the Alabama office has been very busy. In March the company changed venues from its Pelham location to a larger facility in Hoover. The move was also covered by AL.com. The company started in Hoover, which is a suburb of Birmingham, in 2008 as a pet project of academics at Andrew Jackson University. In 2011 the firm relocated to a larger facility in Pelham, and then moved again in March of this year to a space twice as large due to business growth.
ProctorU‘s presentation at the 2011 Sloan Consortium conference in Orlando, Fla. was recorded for posterity and can be viewed on YouTube. The video features Partnership Coordinator Rebecca Tweedy, Vice President of Business Development Jarrod Morgan, President Don Kassner and interviews from the rest of the ProctorU team.
Researchers at Drexel Univeristy, which is partnered with ProctorU for online proctoring, are employing some of the latest technology to revitalize paleontology. According to a new article from Mashable.com, scientists are using a 3D printer to recreate scaled-down models of dinosaur fossils. ProctorU is proud to be partnered with the innovative thinkers at this cutting edge institution.
Students needing to schedule a proctored online exam may now take it within 15 minutes of logging on to ProctorU, thanks to a new feature called Take it Now. Normally, students are asked to create an exam appointment when using ProctorU. Now, students can log in, create an appointment, and take their test in the next 15, 30 or 45 minutes, depending on availability. Keep in mind that during periods of high volume, all three time slots may not be available. Check back soon for more updates!
The president made headlines recently with with remarks on the state of American higher education. In his state of the union address, President Obama announced that he would put colleges on notice and unveiled the details of this mantra during another speech at the University of Michigan.
The president’s policy aims to reduce the cost of college tuition by tying it to three main factors:
Setting a responsible tuition policy
Providing good value to students
Enrolling and graduating large numbers of low-income students
While this plan will likely be debated and somewhat marginalized as a campaign tool, we at ProctorU always welcomes an initiative that aims to make higher education more accessible.
ProctorU executives are on their way to Washington D.C. today to take part in a panel discussion about technology in education. President Don Kassner and Vice President of Business Development Jarrod Morgan will be on hand at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Friday for the President’s Forum, hosted by the U.S. Distance Learning Association.
ProctorU specializes in online proctoring and identity authentication. Each and every time a test-taker shows up for an exam, they must pass the tech firm’s three-step authentication process. Below is a brief description of how it works.
February 1, 2012 is Digital Learning Day, a nationwide campaign developed to raise awareness for online education. Next Wednesday, a virtual national town hall meeting will be broadcast live from Washington, D.C., and will highlight four to six satellite locations. Both California and Alabama, the two states in which ProctorU operates online proctoring centers, are supporting the event with their own celebrations. Alabama will spread awareness for the entire month of February and will present a video showcasing its progress in online education during the national town hall meeting. California will host celebrations with iCalifornia and the California Writing Project.
“While we acknowledge the benefits of our modern world in February, let’s not let the passion for digital learning pass with the month. Use this month as a springboard for innovation. Today’s students are curious, and eager to learn. Their desire, coupled with today’s technology, equals immeasurable learning opportunities,” Dr. Tommy Bice, Alabama’s superintendent of education said in a press release.
Two well-known Internet brands will host protests against a controversial law tomorrow.
Wikipedia will stage an online protest to a proposed anti-piracy law by shutting down the English version of its site for 24 hours and Google’s homepage will include a link declaring its opposition. The moves are in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which threatens eCommerce and free speech on the Internet. ProctorU also opposes this legislation, for multiple reasons listed on a previous post. Most importantly, ProctorU management believes SOPA will unfairly censor legitimate websites and could be used to invade individual privacy.
The internet is brimming now with studies showing the growth of online education and the momentum the industry is gaining as a credible source of academia. One of the newer studies, put together by the Babson Survey Research Group, shows that over 6.1 million students were enrolled in at least one online course in 2010 compared to 1.6 million in 2002. The same study shows that online education accounted for 31 percent of fall 2010 enrollment. The report, entitled “Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011″, also shows that 51 percent of chief academic officers that participated in the study said that online education was the same as face-to-face class r0om instruction.
Services like ProctorU, which promotes academic integrity in online education through proctored testing, helps increase the value and credibility of online education by making it more difficult to cheat on exams. For more information about academic integrity, please watch our webinar from 2011, here.
