About Online Proctoring with Webcams of Exams
For high-stakes exams, particularly in programs whose licensure or accreditation criteria require them to be proctored, online exam administration creates special challenges. The Respondus Lockdown Browser, long available and integrated into Blackboard, provides only partial protections against cheating. To ensure that test-takers do not consult notes or rely on others to complete their work on such exams, Drake will license Respondus Monitor, a video proctoring service, for use in classes. Respondus Monitor video-records students as they take exams and uses AI (artificial intelligence) to detect signs that a student’s attention has turned away from the on-screen exam. When it detects these signs, it “flags” the relevant segment of the recorded video and invites instructors to review that footage to make a determination as to whether cheating is likely to have occurred.
Rationale for Use and Availability of the Tool
Respondus Monitor will be available for any faculty member who believes its uses is warranted. As you decide whether to subject your students to video proctoring, however, please consider the following:
- If you intend to use video proctoring in your course, please inform students of that decision at the beginning of the semester, within the add/drop period, and explain why.
- Video proctoring is highly invasive and will be perceived as such by students. The awareness that they—and their surroundings—are being recorded may affect their performance on the exam and color their sense of their experience of your course.
- Just as with video-mediated synchronous interactions, if, in reviewing video recorded segments of a proctored exam, we see evidence of activity that would ordinarily require us to report it, we are still obligated to report it as if it occurred in your classroom or as if a student has disclosed it. In other words, video recording counts as disclosure.
- There are many alternatives to high-stakes exams:
- Frequent, lower-stakes quizzes; open-book exams; open-note exams; and writing assignments and presentations are all ways of testing students’ familiarity with course material in more academic-dishonesty-resistant ways.
- Assigning opportunities for students to apply, rather than recite knowledge, to challenges or problems that you devise uniquely for your course.
- Asking students to recite or sign a course-specific honor code has been shown to have a significant effect on students’ willingness to cheat.
- Creating exams that can only be completed within the time allotted if a student has gained fluency or mastery over the material makes cheating such a time-consuming activity that it will preclude completion of the exam.
The take-away is this: Please use Respondus Monitor only when there is no other means of allowing students to reliably demonstrate their knowledge and understanding.
How to get Training Around using LockDown Browser and Monitor
Basically, all of the just-in-time training needed is within the Blackboard Learn Ultra course on the Control Panel > Course Tools > Respondus LockDown Browser (it is a dashboard). If it is the first time using it, the training will appear upon first use. Instructor will need to review all resources under each tab to be proficient. If you have accessed the Respondus LockDown Browser dashboard previously and have dismissed the welcome with tutorials, you can click on the About LockDown Browser link in the upper right hand side. All tutorials and training are available for all users.