Lecture capture used to proctor exams in higher education


Monitoring test takers with lecture-capture technology can save campuses money.

Valerie DeVoss knows what test cheating sounds like: Tapping on a smart phone, the rustling of unseen papers, and barely audible whispering – all tipoffs that can be recorded by lecture capture systems used to proctor exams for online students.

Devoss, nursing instructor at Laramie County Community College (LCCC) in Wyoming, said the campus’s switch to equipment traditionally used for recording professors’ lectures has helped educators there more closely monitor students who take quizzes and tests online, by themselves.

Colleges and universities have long used pricey technology to keep an electronic eye on online students. Eye and fingerprint scanners, along with expensive cameras are among the most common tech tools for proctoring web-based tests.

LCCC has saved about $40,000 on each course that uses the lecture capture system to proctor exams, said a spokesman from Tegrity, the California-based company that makes the equipment used by LCCC instructors.

Read more about lecture-capture use in higher education…

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The savings stem from allowing students to take tests alone, with the camera rolling, instead of traveling to a faraway facility where people hired by the school monitor exams.

Devoss and technology officials at LCCC said lecture capture technology with dual purposes has saved the campus money and provided a reliable exam monitoring system with a 360-degree view and ultra-sensitive audio that picks up even the quietest sounds.

“Can we stop it 100 percent? No we can’t,” Devoss said. “But we can greatly decrease the risk, and that’s something, I think, that every college strives for.”

More than 30 U.S. colleges use Tegrity lecture capture systems for test monitoring, according to the company.

The lecture-recording system doesn’t just pick up tapping noises that could be a student texting a fellow student for answers, said Tammarra Holmes, LCCC’s project leader for the test proctoring initiative.

The technology, she said, records any loss of web access during an exam, leaving students without the excuse that internet service temporarily failed during an online test. Those outages, LCCC officials said, provide prime cheating opportunities for dishonest students.

For more on lecture-capture use in higher ed:

Online learning official: Lecture capture helps students ‘review, review, review’

Weber State involved in lecture capture purchasing probe

Opinion: Don’t let ideologues take lecture capture hostage

“That’s not happening nearly as much anymore,” Holmes said. “We know the recording [system] will catch any technical problems that might occur during a test.”

Trina Kilty, instructional designer at LCCC, said the Tegrity system also blocks access to any unapproved websites – a key feature missing from other proctoring systems LCCC officials have considered.

“It basically shuts out any other site they’re not allowed to look at,” Kilty said, adding that some students used to open a new tab on their web browser, quickly Google an issue or question, and plug in the answer on their online test or quiz. “It’s really one-on-one proctoring, as if [the instructor] is there.”

LCCC instructors review random exam videos, and scrutinize proctored videos of students who finish an exam too quickly. Completing a test in 15 minutes when most students take close to an hour, Devoss said, always raises red flags among educators.

Devoss said online students’ almost-inaudible whispering during exams can help her better address concepts the student is struggling to understand.

For more on lecture-capture use in higher ed:

Online learning official: Lecture capture helps students ‘review, review, review’

Weber State involved in lecture capture purchasing probe

Opinion: Don’t let ideologues take lecture capture hostage

“If I can hear what they’re telling and asking themselves … I can help them with their critical thinking and I can make it work for them,” she said.

Cheating among web-based students made national headlines in the closing weeks of the spring 2011 semester. Students at the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University were caught May 12 collaborating with each other during online quizzes.

Upstate students who were aware of classmates cheating on online quizzes and said nothing to school officials were also in violation of the campus’s honor code, the university announced in May.

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