One important aspect of distance learning is distance learning assessment. As the chief executive officer of Examity, exploring this need and its nuances has been part of my daily life since Examity was founded in 2011.
Proctoring has come a long way from the days when professors walked up and down the classroom rows to ensure students were uncomfortable enough to hopefully not cheat. Times have changed and remote proctoring has emerged as a direct result of the new times. The growth of online degrees, courses and certifications have driven logical—and very funda-mental—questions for test providers:
How can we know the test-taker is our student?
How can we be sure our student does not cheat?
How can we keep our test questions secure?
Can we still ask online students to go to physical test locations?
Given our online growth, do we have the ability to keep up with exams?
How can we offer appropriate flexibility to online students?
Rather than answer these questions, which have clearly pointed test providers to a remote proctoring solution, let's discuss why most high volume exam givers, both institutions and corporations, have not gone enterprisewide with remote proctoring.
Commercial solutions have not easily integrated with existing software and learning tools.
Not every learning assessment has the same requirements, and therefore not every learning assessment should be proctored the same way.
Tests have nuances that the remote proctoring groups may not be able to handle.
Fear that this could get expensive.
In other words, vendor limitations have been the problem. Given that remote proc-toring is almost 5 years old and these ques-tions have still not been answered well, the logical question is ... why not?
The answer is quite simple. The tidal wave of online learning gave early entrants a way to achieve success without satisfying the strategic needs of the customer. If a vendor can proctor with a few excited professors at each university, why do the heavy lifting associated with a deeper enterprisewide relationship? With more than 20,000 universities worldwide, there is low hanging fruit everywhere and that fruit is easy to eat and tastes good monetarily. The problem with this strategy, however, is it has kept the test security industry from truly blossoming. The space should be growing even faster.
In 2012, a new type of university and uni-versity division entered the scene, meeting an increasing demand for remote learning opportunities for a growing online student clientele. Some of these institutions had tested the waters with early remote proctoring entrants and others were simply waiting for something better to come along. Traditional colleges like Temple and Rutgers that sought to empower students by giving
them additional choices, and innovative test providers like UniversityNow and Duolingo, all realized that remote proctoring must be more strategic. They eliminated early commercial vendors who could not answer critical questions to ensure that they have a sustainable competitive advantage for their entity. These test providers are keenly aware that whether they need 100 proctored tests or 100,000, a proctoring relationship must be made with the group who is able and willing to align with business needs and trends.
So what does the future look like for remote proctoring?
Better alignment with strategic exam goals.
Integrated with LMS for ease-of-use and scaling with test-taker growth.
Varied proctoring levels and styles to reflect differences in professor needs.
Test environment flexibility to ensure you can handle what is now and next.
Sophisticated account management to facilitate enterprise-wide goals.
Full transparency and the use of data to drive cost containment.
Given that most universities are using remote proctoring in one area or another, there is little debate whether it is a solution that is here to stay. More interesting, however, will be its evolution to maintain test integrity, please students, and keep costs in check. We are not far from remote proctoring becoming a true enterprise-wide objective. The question is whether early players can adapt to meet this challenge.
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