Reducing Cheating & Proctoring Information

Academic dishonesty is a significant concern for many faculty members. You can reduce cheating and other forms of academic dishonesty through clear communication, course design, and test structure. Our suggestions are below. Check out this article Links to an external site. for a deeper dive into how you can reduce cheating through great teaching. 

  • Provide clear instructions as to what you consider cheating. Can students use their notes on tests? Can they talk to other students in the class while taking a test? Can they share their answers to assignments, homework, or papers with other students? When can they "work together" and on what types of assignments? When can they use a tutor to assist them in completing their work and in what ways?  
  • Add an academic integrity statement to your quiz/exam. You can find suggestions for language used by other COB faculty (and offer your own) here Links to an external site.. 
  • Reduce your reliance on one or two high stakes tests. High stakes testing encourages academic misconduct. Consider adding more frequent, lower-stakes testing to your course to reduce pressure on students to cheat on a high stakes midterm/final. 
  • For multiple choice/TF questions, create a question bank so each student gets a different test.
  • Google your questions--you may find they're already on the Internet! If you find them, reword the questions so they won't be easily searched. 
  • Use a timed test with some time pressure (1 minute per question is a suggested guideline).
  • Move away from testing recall (memorization) and focus on application. Where possible, use essay questions or non-quiz assignments to test mastery.
  • Add Turnitin to assignments to reduce plagiarism. 
  • Add an assignment on Canvas for students to review and sign-off on your cheating policy, and/or add outside assessments/quizzes on cheating and plagiarism for discussion or assignment. Examples:

Proctoring Options: 

  • Besides Proctorio (discussed below), you may want to consider People Powered Proctoring (live proctoring by someone other than you), or giving students the option to have you monitor them via Zoom. 

Proctorio: Beginning in Summer 2020, OSU has purchased a site license for the use of a new proctoring tool called Proctorio. This is an AI-driven monitoring system that records students using their webcam and detects unusual or suspicious behavior which is then flagged for review by the faculty member. Proctorio is integrated into Canvas and works with your Canvas quizzes.

  • To use this tool, you'll need to contact academic technologies at least two weeks ahead of your exam date. You will have to have fully built out your exam/quiz in Canvas at that time. Once they receive the request, academic technologies will integrate the Proctorio tool into your Canvas exam. Form and more information. 
  • Proctorio is available for Ecampus classes! Start here: Ecampus Proctorio Resources.
  • You should be aware that a separate Canvas exam will have to be created for any student that has a DAS accommodation or does not have a webcam. Faculty members will need to survey their courses ahead of time to determine who does not have a webcam, because these students will need a different Canvas quiz with different Proctorio settings enabled. If you did not identify a webcam as a required material for the course, you may not require students to get a webcam later in the term.
  • Once Proctorio is enabled within Canvas, you will have to set it up for the exam. You'll get more information about how to use Proctorio from academic technologies after you request access to the tool.  Procotorio is not exactly plug and play, you can contact your Peer Support colleague  John Mentler (john.mentler@oregonstate.edu) for assistance on how to setup Proctorio.
  • After your exam, Proctorio will generate a report that flags unusual or suspicious activities (like looking away from the screen or trying to access a locked browser). You'll then have to look at the recorded video to try to determine what occurred and whether it might constitute academic misconduct. If so, you'll need to go through the usual process of filing a report of academic misconduct.
  • Here is a sample letter - Download Using Proctorio - Directions to Students.docx  that you can provide to your students giving them directions on how to install Proctorio and what they can expect when taking an exam that is being monitored by this application.  In addition, here is a link to Proctorio's Q&A page that provides a comprehensive list of answers to questions that students may have - https://learn.oregonstate.edu/proctorio-qa-students
  • Here is a link to a practice quiz - Proctorio Practice Quiz for Students Links to an external site. that your students should take before you have them take any exam using Proctorio.  This practice quiz ensures the student has appropriately installed  Proctorio on his/her Chrome browser and that the student's computer meets the systems requirements for using Proctorio.   This quiz also gives them the opportunity to experience what it will be like taking an exam that is being proctored by this application.   When you click on the above link you will be taken to the OSU shared common page.  On the right hand side of you screen you will see a blue "down load" button.  Please click on this button to down load this quiz to your course shell.
  • Dr. Xiaohui Chang was gracious enough to record a video on what it is like from the student's perspective to take an exam using Procotorio.  To view the video, please click on the link  "taking an exam with Proctorio" Links to an external site..  
  • If your students raise privacy concerns, John Mentler has written a Download sample letter you can personalize and share in response. A few points we want to stress: 
    • Proctorio meets the university standards for security and privacy; it is FERPA compliant. According to OSU's Chief Information Security Officer, Proctorio possesses satisfactory ISO 27001 certification and has passed a SOC 2 audit. They also use appropriate encryption for data at rest and in transit, so they meet our technical needs.  
    • Proctorio is invasive in the sense that it will be monitoring students while they take a test--this is the point of the application. However, students should be reminded that they can and should uninstall the application after they take an exam, and that Proctorio only collects limited personal information necessary to verify the student's identity prior to taking the test. You can find out more about what kind of information Proctorio collects and what it does with that information here Links to an external site..
    • Proctorio uses an algorithm to identify potential academic misconduct, but it is only used to identify these potential issues, not to draw any conclusions about misconduct. The professor, the college hearing officer, and the university office of student conduct would all be involved in reviewing the evidence before a student would be found responsible for academic misconduct. 

LEARN MORE: Additional information on remote exams can be found here.

WATCH ME: Short video tutorial Links to an external site. on making a quiz and using question banks.

DO IT: making a quiz on Canvas

If you are teaching an Ecampus class, please keep in mind that there may be some disruption to existing proctoring centers. Please contact Ecampus if you have questions: