What is online proctoring?

What is online proctoring and why are more and more Universities using this?

‘Proctoring’ is another word for exam supervision. A number of companies worldwide offer this service and most Australian universities use the company ProctorU.

ProctorU is a live online proctoring service that allows you to take your exam in your own space at home or better yet here at the CUC where we are already setup for online exams. This means that a real person will supervise your exam in real time via your webcam. They will also monitor what is running on your computer via screen sharing software. Using your computer’s webcam, microphone and speakers, you will be able to communicate with your proctor as they guide you through the process of proving your identity, ensuring you are working under exam conditions and logging you in to start your exam. There is also a web chat facility to communicate with the proctor. The proctor is able to assist you with any technical issues or problems with the exam. Once you start your exam, their presence will not be obvious but they will continue to monitor you and the applications on your computer.

More and more universities are becoming online as this can provide you with the flexibility and options that an online platform brings, while retaining the integrity of a supervised exam. There are a number of up-sides this technology could provide to students, academic staff and to the university. Benefits include having much more flexibility in when exams can be held, reducing our carbon footprint, being able to offer rich media in exam questions and removing the issues involved with marking handwritten work.

There are many benefits to students which include the possibility of choosing your own exam start time (within the specific exam availability window) and removing the need to travel to an exam venue. Which for people wanting to further their studies but live remotely, can still go on to do a degree that they may not normally be able to. This also will make your university study much more accessible and make it easier to balance your work, family and study commitments.