Proctoring in the Education Sector: Full Paper Released

Proctoring in the Education Sector: Full Paper Released

Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) has recently commissioned and released a report entitled eProctoring in Theory and Practice that was authored by Professor Paul Giller, the former Registrar and Senior Vice President Academic at UCC.

Dr Padraig Walsh, CEO, Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) articulates the report forward “Since the start of the COVID emergency, remote assessment has been high on everyone’s agenda across the education sector. Invigilated examinations were impossible under lockdown conditions, and this led to the implementation of alternatives including remote proctoring of examinations.

The latter stimulated interest in e-proctoring. In response to this, and with the support of the National Academic Integrity Network (NAIN), Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) commissioned a landscape review of e-proctoring (i) literature (ii) policies and practices and (iii) experiences of: • Irish and foreign higher education institutions; • academic and professional support staff; • students, including international students; • professional, statutory and regulatory bodies. 

We believe that you will find the report interesting, insightful and practically useful when considering the integration of e-proctoring into your organization’s assessment tool kit.

This review was extensive and demonstrated the challenges faced by institutions trying to identify an appropriate eProctoring tool/service. To this point, the paper identified the following E proctoring service providers as some of the available options; ExamOnline, Speedexam, Mercer/Mettl, ProctorU, Examity, Proctorio, Vericient (Proctortrack), AIProctor, ExamSoft, Proview (Talview), ProctorExam, PSI Bridge, Pearson VUE (OnVue)MeritTrac, Integrity Advocate, Oxagile, TestReach, ProProctro, Honorlock, Smowl, Wheebox, Kryterion and Respondus.

A variety of issues were identified in this paper that are often critical for long term success in remote proctoring scenarios, such as whether the provider’s tool/service addressed critical items such as privacy, data retention/GDPR issues, student stress and anxiety, bandwidth, and AI reliability, to name but a few.

The publication outlines the real world results of using specific providers, including the UCD selection of Integrity Advocate, the only Canadian provider (the majority of the providers are based either in the USA or India). This is an added advantage as Canada has third country status with respect to EU GDPR requirements (something that the US proctoring companies do not).

Integrity Advocate was described as having “strong protections with respect to privacy, and integrated well with the UCD VLE environment.” 

Robert Day,  the CEO of Integrity Advocate stated that “we are very pleased to read this report and how Integrity Advocate is seen with relation to academic integrity, student privacy, and the administrative support requirements. We believe that by creating a technology that’s focused on the principles of Privacy by Design we are able to balance the needs of students as well as instructors and administrators and we will be able to continue to provide a best-in-class alternative to organizations globally.” 

Integrity Advocate itself publishes compliance briefs applicable to a wide variety of privacy legislation and draws attention to the need for institutions to consider proctoring service providers are only part of the solution.

Mr William Kelly, Chair, National Academic Integrity Network (NAIN) states that “As the COVID emergency struck, and all institutions had to find alternatives to traditional assessment methods, e-proctoring has gained prominence as a potential solution to the challenges to academic integrity that arise with remote assessment. Therefore, the guidance in this report will be very valuable in enabling reflection and in supporting the development of valid policies and practices.”

To view & download the full report, click here:

https://www.qqi.ie/sites/default/files/2021-12/e-proctoring-in-theory-and-practice-a-review.pdf

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