Online Proctoring / Remote Invigilation

Online Proctoring (also known as Remote Invigilation)

In UK English the word ‘invigilation’ means to watch over students sitting an exam, and in US English this is known as ‘proctoring’. This is why ‘remote invigilation’ is also known as ‘online invigilation’, ‘online proctoring’ or ‘remote online proctoring’. This is when the experience of sitting an exam in a physical test centre or exam hall on campus is recreated in an online environment. So instead of an exam candidate travelling to a venue to sit their exam, the test takers can sit their exam from any location using their computer, as long as they have a quiet room with internet connectivity. This gives a lot of flexibility and convenience to both the test takers and the examining body. Depending on the service provider, during the exam the candidate is connected to a live supervisor over the web, using various technologies to ensure good communications and security. The proctors will authenticate that the right candidate has presented to sit the exam and will monitor the candidate for the duration of the exam to ensure that no cheating occurs.

Reach beyond the Exam Hall with Remote Invigilation / Online Proctoring

Remote Online Proctoring is very simple with TestReach

Once a test has been created within the TestReach application, you just set a flag for the exam to be invigilated online – it couldn't be simpler. Using remote proctoring with TestReach offers a huge degree of flexibility for test takers, who can choose where (and when depending on the style of exam) they wish to take their exams. It also significantly reduces the costs and overhead administration associated with face-to-face exams, while maintaining the academic integrity of the exam itself.

TestReach is the Only Cloud-based solution with Integral Remote Invigilation

TestReach is unique in offering a totally integrated assessment and remote invigilation solution as a cloud-based offering. Through a simple process of 'setting a flag' on your test, you can have our trained supervisors remotely invigilate your exam over the Web. This is ground-breaking and is changing the future of formal examinations.

What Happens During Remote Invigilation or Online Proctoring?

With TestReach online proctoring, at all times the supervisor is connected to the candidate by video, audio, remote screen share and instant messaging, and everything is recorded and can be reviewed at a later time by the examining body. Before the exam begins, the candidate is authenticated, then steps are taken to check and secure the exam environment. Candidates are monitored at all times during the exam and any exceptional circumstances or exam violations that arise are reported in full. An additional advantage of moving exam supervision online is that the ratio of candidates to supervisor is much lower than in a typical exam-hall environment, meaning sacrificing security in order to let a test taker sit the exam doesn't need to be an issue.

Read more articles about remote proctoring at the following links:

Stages in Remote Invigilation Process

Our supervisors can answer questions about any part of the solution:

Exam candidates are under a lot of pressure at exam time and often they have many questions, some of which may relate to the assessment application, e.g. are my answers being saved? Is the notepad submitted as part of the exam? etc. Our supervisors are trained to invigilate exams, but our team is also very knowledgeable about our full solution, so we can answer any questions that arise. This leads to a far better candidate experience and removes any frustrations that may arise if supervisors have no knowledge of the underlying assessment application, easing exam anxiety overall.

Greater Security of Access to Exam:

There is no risk of passwords being compromised or candidates accessing the exam without being remotely invigilated. With most assessment systems you can set a password for an exam and when you ‘bolt-on’ an online proctoring solution, the remote supervisor gives the candidate this password when it is time to enter their exam. The problem is that if this password is compromised (a candidate guesses it, or finds a way to transmit it to another candidate), then other candidates can enter the exam without going through the remote invigilation step. With TestReach there is absolutely no way that candidates can get access to a remotely invigilated exam without going through the remote invigilation process, easing concerns surrounding this and providing solutions that others in the industry can't.

You are only dealing with one supplier:

Each institution only has one contact point and one supplier with responsibility for all aspects of your solution. This supplier is responsible for everything that happens during this type of testing from the online proctoring software running correctly, all the way to ensuring that the single sign on is working correctly.

All information relating to your exam is available in one, easy-to-use dashboard:

If, during the invigilation process, an infringement has been raised, you can immediately see everything to do with that exam in one place. The video recording of the incident, the notes from the invigilator, the candidates score (if questions were auto-scored), what question the candidate was on when the incident arose, the answer given to that question, etc. It allows for a holistic view of the incident to be taken, without having to aggregate data from two separate systems. This is called review proctoring, and allows you to look through the online testing to see what happened, and if any action needs to be taken.

There are no integration points:

While setting up integrations between different data platforms is relatively easily catered for, creating multiple integration points between two different applications is not straightforward. Whilst most of the general cases are usually catered for, it is the many potential exceptions and unusual situations that can cause problems. Having both your remote invigilation and assessment platform within one application avoids this.