Expensive, unsafe, ineffective. Understanding the most popular concerns about remote proctoring

Last year, HKO Educase, a non-profit organization of over 1,800 universities, colleges, and other educational institutions, conducted a survey. It was attended by representatives of the USA, Canada, Australia, China, and other countries. The researchers interviewed respondents in order to obtain information about the attitude of universities towards an online proctoring solution and possible barriers to the integration of such invigilation. The results showed that the main problems for educational institutions remain the high cost of online control, data confidentiality, and doubts about the effectiveness of the proctoring itself.

Let us tell you what customers are commonly afraid of in the field of proctoring and why there are no worries.

High Price

58% of respondents noted that proctoring is beyond their means. High cost is usually not an obstacle for large universities and corporations, but for small companies and educational institutions, price is often an issue. At Examus we noticed this back in 2015 when we came to the online proctoring market with our solution. This led us to the idea that a flexible line of tariffs is required for all categories of clients.

Now 4 tariff options are available for our customers:

1. SaaS solution - in this case, the client uses the Examus software, but only pays for a specific number of proctored exams. In this case, the customer does not need his own infrastructure - everything you need is already in the software. This method is suitable for organizations with small budgets.

2. Annual subscription - the solution is hosted on any cloud or server upon the customer’s request. Suitable for clients who conduct over 60,000 exams annually.

3. Exam Package - suitable if a client needs to conduct a large volume of exams one-time. For example, universities can purchase proctoring for one mid-year assessment test.

4. Per Student Per Year - suitable for universities that buy proctoring for the entire academic year. They pay on a per-student basis and receive a certain number of hours for each exam taker.

Another factor affecting pricing is the choice of hosting server. It is no secret that deploying a solution on a physical server is usually more expensive than in the cloud. That is why Examus provides customers with the opportunity to choose where to store information: on the Examus cloud platform, in the customer's virtual storage or on a physical server. To reduce costs and speed up system deployment, we recommend hosting in a cloud server.

Data Confidentiality

According to 51% of respondents, data security remains a serious problem. The fears did not come out of nothing: the specificity of online proctoring requires the exchange and storage of a large amount of information (videos, photos of students and documents). Some part is confidential.

To reduce risks, Examus stores data only on trusted cloud platforms: Google Cloud, AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Cloud, etc. We comply with all GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) standards and use sophisticated encryption through a secure channel using SSL certificates. To make our clients feel safe, we cooperate with experts in the field of international law to develop the most transparent agreements. Here you could find a full list of our privacy practices.

Is it Efficient?

We were surprised that 41% of educational organizations doubt that the proctoring system can work effectively. However, these concerns are completely unfounded.

Let see some cases.

After the introduction of online proctoring at the Sberbank Corporate University and its divisions, the number of cheating online exams decreased by 30%, and more than 50% of employees noted that they consider the new format as a more conscientious one.

The Higher School of Economics has introduced proctoring for online entrance exams. As a result, the total number of participants has tripled, and foreign applicants have got more opportunities to enter HSE remotely. Their number has grown by 52%.

Besides ensuring fairness and transparency during the examination, proctoring also helps to cut customer costs. Thus, thanks to the online format, HSE has reduced admission expenses by almost 80%. Using proctoring technologies our corporate clients now can test employees on the job and lower travel and other associated costs.

And this only a couple of examples of how online proctoring can benefit companies and universities.