With exam season for higher education in full swing, many instructors are concerned if their students will take their tests fairly when they are in a remote environment.
When students take tests in classrooms, it’s relatively easy to monitor their behavior, to ensure they aren’t cheating or using unauthorized tools or resources. However, in this new mainly online learning environment due to COVID-19, keeping exams fair has become far more difficult.
As a starting point, professors should make sure they communicate with students about appropriate and acceptable test-taking behavior, and also clearly outline the materials students can use during an exam. Communicating expectations can go a long way toward keeping students on the straight and narrow during exams. But professors can also alter the way in which they give their tests to make sure students are staying honest and are assessed fairly.
Vanderbilt University’s Center for Teaching offers two testing options to help professors structure their exams in a way that reduces the possibility of cheating.
Change the format. The pandemic is forcing professors to alter their instructional methods, so it makes sense that they need to change up their exam formats as well. Vanderbilt University suggests that professors re-think their exams to allow students to collaborate and use resources like notes or texts. Even using a collaborative testing model, professors can challenge their students with complex questions that allow students to apply their knowledge.
Give each student a different but equivalent exam. When professors give tests in a classroom or lecture hall, or in any environment where it’s challenging to monitor all students at once, they can use different versions of the exam to cut down on wandering eyes. Changing the order of the questions alone can be quite helpful. Online tools and technologies can help professors deliver separate but equal exams to online students. For instance, Vanderbilt professors are encouraged to give exams through the Brightspace learning management system or Top Hat, an active learning platform. Both can present students learning online with a slightly different but equivalent exam that reduces the possibility of unwanted peer collaboration. These technologies can create isomorphic questions – those that are identical with a small change – and randomize the order of questions.
Use tools to prevent students from using other websites during the exam. Different technologies have features that keep students from consulting other online sources during exams. For instance, Brightspace’s Lockdown Browser prevents students from accessing other websites on the device they use to take tests and let students check out approved websites, too. Top Hat’s tool, “Proctoring,” shuts the students out of the exam if they leave the test or take a screenshot.