Universitywide COVID-19 Information: Remote Exams and Assessments

Proctored Exams

Traditional timed, proctored exams are possible using the tools available in Canvas and Sakai and remote proctoring tools like Respondus Monitor. However, proctored remote exams have several drawbacks:

  1. They are often even more stressful for students than in-person proctored exams, which can negatively impact student performance.
  2. They require substantial planning and setup on the part of the instructor and the student, and remote proctoring tools can generate many “false positive” flags that must be reviewed by an instructor after the exam.
  3. Not all students have access to the appropriate technology to use remote proctoring tools; instructors will have to make accommodations for such students.
  4. The technical infrastructure of remote proctoring services has not been utilized at this scale before, so planning must include what to do if the proctoring service crashes during the exam.
  5. Students may have privacy concerns about third-party recorded remote proctoring. Unlike when students agree to the use of such systems when they register for online courses, during emergency remote instruction students do not have any alternative to remote instruction and their test taking environment may not be conducive to remote proctoring services.
  6. Since the transition to remote instruction, we have routinely received reports that students find remote proctoring systems relatively easy to circumvent.

For these reasons, we recommend using alternatives to timed, proctored exams wherever possible. Large courses reliant on in-person exams should consider open-book exams or frequent low-stakes assessments as alternative assessment strategies that are relatively easy to grade. See the sections below for details and advice.

Alternatives to Proctored Exams

Your learning goals are an excellent place to start when considering alternative assessments: what do you hope students will be able to do by the end of your course, and in what ways can they demonstrate what they know? 

To discuss strategies for your specific course, please contact the SAS Teaching and Learning Team or an Instructional Designer in TLT.

For documentation about implementing different assessments using the tools available in Canvas or Sakai, follow the links in the "Assessing Student Learning" section on the main Keep Teaching page.

More Ideas

These sites present many more ideas for alternatives to traditional final exams: