ABSTRACT
Online exams have become increasingly popular in recent years for assessing students' content knowledge, especially during the COVID-19 outbreak. Proctoring for online tests is, however, challenging due to the lack of a face-to-face connection. Furthermore, according to a prior study, online assessments are more vulnerable to various types of cheating, putting their validity at risk. Suspicious student head and mouse movements are identified and depicted in three degrees of detail, allowing course instructors and professors to proctor online tests in a rapid, fast, and trustworthy manner. Our thorough evaluations, which include usage scenarios, well-designed user research, and expert interviews, indicate that our method is effective and practical. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
ABSTRACT
Since COVID 19, there have been significant advancements in the field of teaching and learning. Academic institutions are going digital to provide their students more resources. Due to technology, students now have more alternatives to study and improve skills at their own pace. In terms of assessments, there has been a shift toward online tests. The absence of a physical invigilator is perhaps the most significant impediment in online mode. Henceforth, online proctoring services are becoming more popular, and AI-powered proctoring solutions are becoming demanding. In this project, we describe a strategy for avoiding the physical presence of a proctor during the test by developing a multi-modal system. We captured video using a webcam along active window capture. The face of the test taker is identified and analyzed to forecast his emotions. To identify his head pose, his feature points are identified. Furthermore, aspects including a phone, a book, or the presence of another person are detected. This combination of models creates an intelligent rule-based inference system which is capable of determining if any malpractice took place during the examination. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
With COVID-19, online education has become a realistic solution for educational institutions. Since tests (exams) are an important assessment tool for measuring learners' academic performance, educational institutions have faced important challenges to construct (online) tests remotely in a way that maintains their smooth operations, quality and fairness, and ensures their security and integrity. We analyze and evaluate the remote test process from the learners' perspectives, taking into account three different dimensions. First, the proficiency in conducting remote tests by learners. This is considered by evaluating ease of access and conducting tests, availability of appropriate test environment, and ability to focus adequately during tests. Second, controlling and managing test processes by institutions, i.e. availability of needed educational and technical support for learners. Third, Achieving security, integrity and fairness in tests. We investigate, from the learners' perspective, the level of learner cheating and violation of the academic integrity of the institutions testing policy and regulations. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Medical education has gone online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Formative assessment is essential to facilitate the learning process in medical education. However, various challenges arise during online assessment, which include reliability, when done without monitoring and practical concerns like Internet connectivity issues. This study was done to assess the medical students' perceptions of the reliability, usefulness, and practical challenges of online tests. One hundred first-year undergraduate medical students taking up online classes and tests in the subject of physiology were enrolled in this study. A questionnaire with items regarding practical challenges, reliability, and usefulness of the online tests, in general, and about different types of online assessment methods, in particular, were sent to the students online. Each item was rated on a five-point Likert scale, and the responses were analyzed anonymously. A large percentage of students used mobile phones (81.4%) to undertake online tests. Although most students (73.2%; P < 0.001) felt that online tests helped them substantially in learning the subject, network connectivity issues were considered to be a matter of serious concern (85.5%, P < 0.001). Among the assessment methods used, viva voce by video conferencing was thought to be most reliable (83%, P < 0.001). Multiple-choice question-based assessment when done online was felt to be more practically feasible with faster feedback than classroom assessment. The results of the study suggest that medical students find online formative assessments helpful for their learning, despite their concerns about reliability and practical challenges.