Securing and Proctoring Online Tests

Online course delivery has introduced a new spectrum of opportunities not only for innovative pedagogical approaches, but also for cheating. This chapter provides instructors with methods to deter students from cheating in online assessments either by limiting the opportunity to cheat or by reducing their motivation for doing so. Through an extensive discussion of research literature, we provide an exploration of cheating that includes: definitions, cost and effects, ethical considerations, motivations for cheating, role of organizational policy, history and recent examples. In this exploration, both technological solutions and instructional design solutions to reduce cheating are examined. This chapter looks closely at the capabilities and limitations of online testing and the tools technology provides to reduce cheating. We emphasize the role of instructional design in securing online tests. We conclude with a discussion on future trends.

Delivering Computerized Assessments Safely and Securely

The use of computers to assess knowledge, skills, and attitudes is now universal. Today, distinguishing between the various delivery and security requirements for each style of assessment is becoming increasingly important. It is essential to differentiate between the different styles of computerized assessments in order to deploy assessments safely, securely, and cost effectively. This chapter provides a methodology for assessing the security requirements for delivering computer-based assessments and discusses appropriate security measures based on the purpose and nature of those assessments. It is designed to help readers understand the issues that need to be addressed in order to balance the need for security with the need for cost effectiveness. The authors hope to give readers a working knowledge of the technological innovations that are making it easier to ensure the safety and security of a wide range of computerized assessments including online tests, quizzes, and surveys.

Ten Key Qualities of Asessment Online

Student assessment belongs in the centre of our teaching and learning considerations—it is the engine that drives and shapes student learning. In online contexts, it is argued that although teaching and learning has been dramatically reconceptualised, assessment practices are lagging, and more likely to imitate conventional practices such as end of term exams that encourage rote learning and the dissemination of fixed content. The authors argue that it is essential for online educators to bring the same innovation to their assessment practices that they have to their other online teaching practices. Ten key qualities of good online assessment are offered for consideration and discussion, namely: 1. A clear rationale and consistent pedagogical approach 2. Explicit values, aims, criteria, and standards 3. Relevant authentic and holistic tasks 4. Awareness of students’ learning contexts and perceptions 5. Sufficient and timely formative feedback 6. A facilitative degree of structure 7. Appropriate volume of assessment 8. Valid and reliable 9. Certifiable as students’ own work 10. Subject to continuous improvement via evaluation and quality enhancement

Supporting and Facilitating Academic Integrity in Distance Education through Student Services

This chapter briefly describes the growing concern over a lack of academic integrity in higher education and the traditional methods employed to detect and prevent it. Arguing that these possess inherent shortcomings, the author describes a systems approach that incorporates all aspects of student services: admissions, marketing, and orientation; instructional support; instructional technology; library services; and counseling and advocacy. For academic integrity policies and programs to truly be effective, they must be universal and preventative in scope and include all segments of student services and the student body itself. Regular assessment must be conducted and the topic incorporated into professional development. The primary goal for educational institutions should be to foster and support the development of academic integrity in their students.

User Authentication and Academic Integrity in Online Assessment

This chapter reviews the issues surrounding user authentication and academic integrity in online assessment and offers a number of academic and technological solutions for dealing with student identification and plagiarism. It argues that even though violations of academic integrity are seemingly ubiquitous across all forms of educational delivery, the relative recency of online education has led to growing concerns among faculty and administrators. Although technological solutions for addressing the issues of user authentication and academic integrity are increasing in number, the chapter emphasizes the need for effective instruction and authentic assessment as the strongest means of deterring and reducing the number of academic integrity violations.

Legal Implications of Online Assessment

At a time when information, including purloined test and assessment content, moves at “Internet speed,” test and assessment owners are usually comforted to know that the law provides meaningful protection if threshold test security measures are observed. This chapter explores the question of whether that protection extends to the use of online assessment which promise greater access, convenience and savings. Applying threshold security requirements derived from copyright and trade secret laws, this analysis indicates that in its widely practiced and current form, online assessment would fail to qualify for protections by which disclosure of text content could be swiftly condemned. Online test and assessment owners are cautioned to explore threshold security alternatives and to carefully weigh the importance of their tests, as well as investments in the creation and distribution of a test instrument, against the potential loss of test content.

Legal Implications of Online Assessment

This chapter provides a survey of basic legal issues that online assessment developers and users need to be aware of and account for in their assessment design, development, implementation, and interpretation activities. High-stakes assessments such as professional certification and college admissions exams are particularly vulnerable to legal challenge when there is evidence of problems with respect to validity, reliability, testing fraud, or unfair bias. The chapter provides straightforward suggestions that will help assessment developers and users avoid legal problems with their exams.

Factors to Consider in the Design of Inclusive Online Assessment

This chapter presents factors to consider in the design of online assessments for all students, including students with disabilities and English-language learners. It presents a process and considerations for the initial transformation of paper-and-pencil assessments to inclusive online assessments, focusing on features of universal design, the use of assistive technology, and an examination of the use of individual accommodations in light of the content tested. The authors hope to convey the importance of implementing a process for addressing these considerations from the beginning of online assessment design. Retrofitting completed assessments can result in concerns about validity.

Securing and Proctoring Online Assessments

This chapter examines five main aspects of delivering secure tests and examinations via online methods. First, the importance of understanding the problem of test cheating is discussed. Existing guidelines that help shape computerized test delivery are reviewed for how they manage test administration processes. A taxonomy of different types of cheating is presented and solutions to important security issues in online assessment are considered. Last, future trends in deterring and detecting cheating are proposed. Furthermore, the authors hope that understanding the threats to online test security and considering the options to solve these problems, will provide a forum for reducing test theft and increasing integrity for test takers and test sponsors alike.

Accessibility of Computer-Based Testing for Individuals with Disablities and English Language Learners within a Validity Framework

There is a great need for designers of computer-based tests and testing systems to build accessibility into their designs from the earliest stages, thereby overcoming barriers faced by individuals with disabilities and English language learners. Some important potential accessibility features include text-to-speech, font enlargement and screen magnification, online dictionaries, and extended testing time. Yet accessibility features can, under some circumstances, undermine the validity of test results. Evidence centered assessment design (ECD) is offered as a conceptual framework—providing sharable terminology, concepts, and knowledge representations—for representing and anticipating the impact of accessibility features on validity, thus helping weigh the consequences of potential design alternatives for accessible computer-based tests and testing systems.