How to Conduct Credible & Secure Large-Scale Examinations?

COVID-19 has already changed the world in more ways than we know. Every institution is undergoing radical transformations to ensure continuity. The pandemic has underlined the need for a long-term solution to prepare for an extended period of transitioning between lockdowns and normalcy.

Education has been one of the most recent domains to adopt modern technology. Many institutions have already postponed their exams (entrance, competitive, semester, final) because of the disruption caused by the ongoing health emergency, rendering several thousands of students in a precarious situation. 

Much has been said about the need to shift to the online mode of pedagogy and examination, even before the onset of the pandemic. With two months into lockdown and counting, the continuity of education, and the future of an entire generation of students are under genuine threat and require ingenious solutions to tide over the crisis. 

The education industry and its offshoots’ aspiration to embrace technology should be integral to today’s policymaking. Institutions can play a lead role in breaking the mold and adopting technology to leapfrog into the next phase of education and evaluations. 

The present format of most examinations needs to bring a large number of students at one venue, which creates several challenges. Deferring exams is only a short-term solution. It will take longer to flatten the pandemic’s curve and revert to the usual way of life.

“COVID-19 caused a halt for many educational institutions, which in turn has caused difficulties for students. Many institutions have, therefore, turned to online teachings and tools to help in continuing the education of students. The time has now come for these institutions to consider online examinations. If they want to ensure the future of the working world gets an education, and are unable to reopen due to the virus, this might be the best option that they have. If institutes are looking at implementing online examination software, some of the best aspects to look for are accessibility, security, and usability. The aim is to ensure that examination ‘papers’ can not be modified or accessed prior to the examination date, and that, when the exam does take place, students are able to complete the examination without any issues. We need to utilize the internet to educate future workers, online examinations might be the best option.” – Carla Diaz, Cofounder, Broadband Search.

For most institutions, the scale of the exam is the foremost challenge, as tens of thousands of students attempt the tests. Institutions can scale exams by choosing a platform that allows multiple candidates/users to attempt the exam simultaneously, irrespective of their geographical location. The online examination platform should be robust enough to support numerous candidates, offer quick response time and auto-save features, to ensure better scalability while ensuring the utmost security of the exam.

“An online examination platform/software should ideally have a simple interface to create and host exams. It should provide the institution conducting the exam the ability to monitor and distribute correction tasks; to create questions and quizzes of different types; to conduct live exams, with multiple screen shares for proctored exams; to host online fairs with multiple people allowed to demonstrate their projects, and to enable the software to lock down the student’s computer during the duration of the exam, so he/ she can’t do anything but take the test on the computer during the exam. Online examination platforms also need to address issues such as scalability, security, accessibility, credibility, remote proctoring, and ease of use so that institutions can trust them for use. They should allow exams to be conducted at scale with a very low chance of paper leakages and easier tracking of scoring and distribution of reports. The tools should be easy to use with minimal setup and run on low resources.” – Suchin Ravi, Lead Instructor, YoungWonks.

Mercer | Mettl’s delivered 20 million assessments in 2019 on its online examination platform, roughly translating to 53,500 assessments a day, more than 60% of which were remotely proctored. 250+ educational institutions across the globe widely use our platform. Our AI relies on a rich history of data with over five years of experience in proctoring, making us a standout player in the market. We were acknowledged in the prestigious Gartner’s Market Guide for Remote Proctoring Services for Higher Education — the only Indian company to have featured as a recommended vendor for remote proctoring services to support the growth of online learning in higher education. We have a record of conducting a hundred thousand assessments in one day, securely with our state-of-art proctoring solution, guaranteeing a seamless experience for test-takers, even at such a scale.

Many institutions believe that the security of the online exam is usually compromised. A significant challenge for maintaining academic integrity, exam security mostly depends on the examination platform chosen by an educational body. A secure ecosystem is a must while choosing an examination platform. The security of students’ personal data, question bank data of institutions, and the exam results need to be ensured.

Mercer | Mettl’s platform ensures online exam security through:

The pandemic is an extraordinary time and calls for commensurate measures. The administration of any large-scale examination can be complicated and involves the collaboration of diverse stakeholders. With a scalable, secure, credible, and robust platform, it is possible to prototype the test scale and improve it rapidly to ensure the continuity of education.

With its range of online solutions for education and learning continuity, Mercer | Mettl’s online examination platform has adopted the latest technology, multiple compliances, stringent policies, extensive protocols, regular testing, and internal and external auditing. These measures ensure information privacy and data security at every stage of the examination/assessment process to iron out challenges faced by institutions while shifting to digital examinations. 

Mercer | Mettl’s online examination platform is pre-configured with AI-powered proctoring and equips end-to-end exam management at scale, with unparalleled security. By supporting different question formats, advanced anti-cheating features, comprehensive reports and analytics, and continual tech assistance to students and faculty members, Mercer | Mettl’s online examination platform is the only platform capable of matching your desired scale. 

Universities have used Mercer | Mettl’s examination platform across the globe for high-stakes entrance and competitive exams, mid-stakes semester exams, and even low-stakes weekly tests and quizzes. 

IFIM Business School, Bangalore, leveraged our dynamic end-to-end online examination platform to meet its semester examination requirements. The institute’s expectation included a high-range of sophisticated features for giving and taking exams in multiple formats, including the right combination of credibility, security, swiftness, scalability, and evaluation while complying with its exam regulations. The comprehensive software was integrated with the institute’s system in just two days. It enabled IFIMB to host its semester exams online, without any operational complexities, securely in a cost-effective, user-friendly manner, with minimal technical adaptability.

The Washington Center, headquartered in Washington, D.C., has assisted more than 60,000 students in translating their college majors into viable career opportunities for over four and a half decades. TWC faced numerous challenges, including the absence of a secure and integrated examination platform, unavailability of a user-friendly and precise process, finding a platform compliant with TWC’s validation criteria, lack of provision for proctoring, insecure browsing experience and absence of anti-cheating mechanisms. Mercer | Mettl’s online examination platform offered its easy-to-use and customizable platform, with a live and manual proctoring provision, 24×7 support, and advanced AI-powered anti-cheating solutions, including secure browser. The platform was smoothly and quickly integrated onto TWC’s system, addressing all bottlenecks and empowering it to conduct large-scale exams with utmost credibility and security.