Super Proctor: Mercer | Mettl’s Latest SmartProctoring System

Educational institutes have traveled a fair distance since the outbreak of the COVID-19. While educational institutes have faced unprecedented challenges, they have demonstrated exceptional resilience and alacrity in exploring and adopting technological solutions. COVID-19 has been a watershed moment for the education system. The technology was broadly considered esoteric, but the pandemic has egged institutions to make the long-awaited transition to accept technology as a means to ensure continuity.

Premier institutions have always prided their examinations’ integrity. Both entrance and semester exams are critical as the former ensures quality admissions, and the latter evaluates students’ progress to accord them with degree certificates.

In the past six months, numerous educational institutions have taken a leap of faith, bidding farewell to traditional means of examination to safeguard students’ future. The foremost challenge in this undertaking was to find a reliable, scalable, and robust online platform. The ability to exert unequivocal control over examination processes have enabled institutes to uphold excellence and standards. Therefore, demonstrating faith in technology was a significant first step in the right direction.

Students are being proctored through multiple layers of security measures – the first is the AI-led proctoring, the second is the presence of a human proctor, and the third is the record and review session. However, education institutions felt the need to add a security layer to also manage the proctors and invigilators.

With smart technologies making headway into the education sector, many educational institutions felt the need for a smartproctor. A smartproctor is an entity that oversees the entire examination and proctoring drive and can intercede for a more credible and streamlined process. This smartproctor is a flexible function that can enter any human proctor’s live session to ensure the invigilators do their best to curb cheating instances. This smartproctoring technology helps institutions regulate and centralize the monitoring process.

Mercer | Mettl successfully executed online examinations with proctor monitoring in premier institutes, such as IIMs, IITs, The Washington Center, EBZ Business School Germany, Ashoka University, Miami Dade College, The USA, etc. Mercer | Mettl’s platform ensured scale and security through the following features:

• Photo verification
• ID card verification

• The test is launched in lockdown mode, wherein additional tabs are disabled, and navigation is restricted.
• Restricts the candidates from using cut/copy/paste functions during the test.
• Restricts the candidates from using right-clicks and developer tools during the test.
• Attempts to navigate away from the test window are noted in the log report.

• Auto-generated flags for:
• • Facial and voice detection
  • Mobile phone detection
  • Distraction detection
  • Multiple people detection
• ‘Away From Test Window’ notification sent to the human proctor.

• Live Proctoring wherein invigilators monitor multiple candidates in a single view.
• Record and review proctoring wherein our team of experts review every recorded session.
• One-to-many + One-on-one human-based proctoring.
• Two-way chat supported between candidates & proctors.

The expeditious transition toward online examinations has established technology as a solution to overcome unforeseen disruptions. However, at Mercer | Mettl, we are continually innovating to enhance the user-friendliness of our solutions. We wanted to ascertain that the shift to online examinations was not a stop-gap arrangement but a more sure-footed transition. Therefore, we reached out to our consumer base to incorporate their feedback to improve our online examination and proctoring offerings.

Super Proctor: The Latest Addition to Mercer | Mettl’s Proctor Management System

One of the most significant concerns among institutes was relinquishing control over the examination process, allowing someone else to pull strings. In this case, that ‘someone’ is technology. Today, several vendors on the market are offering live proctoring technology where proctors can see the students and flag cheating incidents. However, many examination comptrollers and institutes’ deans expressed their desire to be part of the examination drive, with the ability to drop in at any proctor’s classroom view as in a physical center where a supervisor does the rounds of the examination center to monitor students and invigilators.

A technology not available with most of our competitors, this smartproctoring feature assures the universities that the examination process is not compromised at any step by allowing them to supervise the entire drive remotely.

Super Proctor is the fourth pillar on which Mercer | Mettl’s proctoring stands. The first three being AI-proctoring, human proctoring, and the platform’s scale, stability and technology. Super Proctor provides end-client visibility in a live proctored drive for enhanced control. This smartproctoring technology is a valuable addition to Mercer | Mettl’s already credible online proctoring.

Mercer | Mettl has already solved online examination’s challenges, from providing advanced proctoring to a robust platform, from ensuring stakeholder comfort to process seamlessness. The Super Proctor feature closes the loop, guaranteeing a highly credible, secure and scalable online examination environment.

The education sector has divergent views on employing technology. Many traditional institutes continue to stress the importance of conventional means given the extent to which they offer quality control. However, COVID-19 has led to a surge in educationists supporting new-age technologies to promote accessibility and educational continuity.

The education sector has sought advanced technologies to uphold the same quality and control standards as in a traditional setting. Mercer | Mettl’s Super Proctor is the last piece of the puzzle that makes the online examination platform a sustainable long-term solution for unforeseen disruptions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Super Proctors help preserve the integrity of the examination process while enhancing the ease of giving and taking exams for examinees and examiners in equal measure.

How are proctored exams monitored?

Proctored exams are monitored through multiple layers of security. The first layer of security is AI-based, followed by a live human proctor, and record and review. Most educational institutions prefer all three security measures to ensure the credibility of their high-stakes exams. However, institutes have also expressed concerns about the authority of the proctors in the process, and the lack of measures to assess whether they are following all security protocols. Hence, smartproctoring was introduced as an additional feature to supervise the entire examination drive and monitor the proctors. Thus, there is a fourth layer of security through which proctored exams are monitored, called ‘Super Proctor.’   

How does smart proctoring work?

Smartproctoring works by introducing an additional persona in the online examination drive. This new persona works akin to an examination controller, or a center in-charge that can enter any invigilator’s classroom to ensure that they are following all established protocols and action is taken against those indulging in malpractices. Smartproctoring allows institutes to add a security layer to the entire online examination process by allowing one or multiple proctors to oversee existing/external proctors.