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The University of South Florida has chosen the Proctorio system for all proctored online exams this semester, after having trialed the solution for a year.
According to a report from The USF Oracle, Proctorio is not required to be used at this time, the research was in response to questions from employers concerning the validity of online degrees. The university researched and tested a number of solutions and ultimately decided that Proctorio was the best of the tested programs.
The program, which automatically links with South Florida's Canvas system, doesn’t require an actual person to watch the student during the exam, so the student doesn’t have to schedule the time they will be taking the exam. However, it does require both the student and the professor to be using Google Chrome as Proctorio is a browser extension.
The use of Proctorio is funded on campus for the first two years, and will be built into the technology fee that students pay each semester. University officials say that under the contract, the cost of the Proctorio system breaks down to about $3 per student, per exam. The system offers up to three different proctoring methods: through ID verification, on-screen monitoring and student monitoring. The professor decides which of these methods is required at the time they configure the exam.
As part of Proctorio's ID verification process, a picture is taken of the student holding up their student ID prior to beginning the exam. By default the student will not be filmed during the exam, nor will their computer be locked down, unless otherwise specified by the professor.
The optional student monitoring feature takes a recording of the student and flags for any suspicious behavior such as leaving the screen for an extended period of time or if they appear to be reading notes that aren’t within the camera view. It also picks up audio, so the film would be flagged if the student’s microphone picks up another person speaking in the room.
