Today we are going to talk about online proctoring as it relates to taking quizzes and exams in online courses. As part of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, Maryville University is now required to authenticate the identity of distance education students.
To help with this, Maryville has partnered with a company called Proctorio. Proctorio is an automated proctoring service that students will use when taking exams and select online courses. The purpose of Proctorio is to (first) verify the identity of the student taking the test and (second) to ensure the integrity of the exam within our academic programs. Depending on how Proctorio is set up within a given course, students may be required to take a picture of their photo ID, scan their room with a WebCam, and snap a picture of their face etc. Let's take a look at how Proctorio works.
First, and most important, you need to use the most up-to-date version of Google Chrome to take the exam. Proctorio will not work in any other browser like Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer. When the time comes to take your exam also make sure you do so in a quiet, well-lit room free of distraction.
Once you are ready, you simply just pull up the Google Chrome browser, navigate to maryville.instructure.com to log into Canvas and input your credentials. Once you are in Canvas, you simply navigate to your course, choose "Quizzes" from the left side navigation bar, and you will see a list of all of the exams and quizzes that will be required for this specific course. You can identify which ones will be proctored by the fact that it says "Remotely Proctored" at the end of the exam title.
To start the exam, simply choose the exam that you are going to take. It will then take you into the exam and you will notice that there is a big large warning that says you do not have the extension needed to take this exam. You will then notice that there is a big warning sign that says you do not have the required extension to take this exam "click here." I will simply click here. It's going to take me to a new tab in the browser telling me that I am using Google Chrome which is good and that I need to "Install Proctorio Chrome Extension," and "click here" to do so, so I'm going to go ahead and do that.
It's going to add that extension to my Chrome browser, and once it's done you will see that "Proctorio has been added to Chrome" and that I am good to go to begin my exam. I will simply exit out of this tab. That warning is now gone inside of Canvas, and I am now able to start the exam, so I'm going to choose "Take the Quiz."
It's going to take me into the Proctorio settings where it is going to tell me what will be required of me in this exam. It will identified that "This exam will be monitored by Proctorio." It will tell me what will be restricted within this exam and what information will be collected to ensure identity verification and academic integrity.
If I scroll down to the very bottom, it is going to start the pre-exam checks. All this is going to do is make sure that I have a WebCam and a working microphone.
You will see now that my diagnostic check was good, and it takes me to the next step where it starts to do the identity verification. You can see that I am now in the window, and it tells me that my exam is about to begin. I'm going to make sure that I don't have to get up during the exam or leave the exam for any reason. I'm going to go ahead and choose "next." It's going to take me through a series of tests.
The first is a WebCam image test. It's going to verify that my WebCam is working, because it will proctor you throughout the exam experience. I'm going to go ahead and begin the camera test by looking at my camera and smiling. It's going to go ahead and then tell me that at some point during the exam it will prompt me to scan my room with my WebCam. I'm going to go ahead and read this and make sure I understand and then choose "I understand."
It's going to identify where I am located. You can see that it identifies the location and IP address that I'm using to take this exam currently. I'm going to choose that I accept all of these and to begin the exam.
You can see now it is starting my exam. In the upper left-hand corner you can see it's going to be a picture of my WebCam, and it is actually asking me to scan my room right now. This is a case where I will either pick up my WebCam or actually pick up the laptop I have, start my scan and actually do a scan of the entire room so I'm scanning my office. I will put my WebCam back where it goes and hit done.
I can then take the exam like I normally would and submit the exam once I'm finished. You will notice that it automatically exits out of Proctorio once you submit your exam. You will see that my WebCam is no longer being monitored in the upper left-hand corner. When I am finished I can simply exit out of Canvas, and I'm finished with the Proctorio exam.