Completely securing digital assessments is challenging in any context where you want to limit what resources a student has access to when doing the assessment. This academic integrity challenge has become amplified with the prevalence of generative AI tools.
Different assessments have various requirements and different stakes. When designing and setting up your digital assessment, carefully consider how important it is to have an exam.
Double check if you need to do all the work involved in digital exam invigilation.
1). Is it essential that students do the assessment without access to course materials? How will they demonstrate these same skills professionally? Consider if an open book exam may be appropriate.
2). What is the most essential learning for the course? Is it possible the exam could focus on that rather than all the smaller details? Consider if an oral exam or assessment may be appropriate.
3). Is generative AI likely to play a significant factor in how students will do their work in your field upon graduation? Consider moving away from an exam to a different method of synchronous assessment more resistant to unpermitted use of AI, like demonstrating learning in multiple smaller tasks, or authentically integrating AI use into the assessment.
Layered approach to securing assessments
If having an exam is important enough in your context that you want to exhibit substantial effort to secure it, use multiple methods. Using a layered approach of multiple strategies helps secure assessments and boosts student and instructor confidence about the validity of the assessment.
For each of the concerns below that you have, add a minimum of two strategies to your approach. Read detailed information on each strategy so you understand its strengths and weaknesses before you use it.
- Have students complete a short oral exam via Zoom with rotating questions.
- Use browser lockdown software if required by an accrediting body.
- Have Canvas draw questions from Item Banks and have each student receive subsets of the overall banks.
- Increase the level of thinking needed to answer the questions (makes it more resistant to AI use).
- Ask students to reflect on their learning journey in the course and / or connect their answers to specific course activities.
- Unpublish other course content during closed-book exams.
- Modify exam questions each term.
- Have students complete a short oral exam via Zoom with rotating questions.
- Have Canvas draw questions from Item Banks and have each student receive subsets of the overall banks.
- Shuffle questions and answer options within Canvas quizzes.
- If exam questions involve calculations, use the Formula question type as it can provide different numerical values for each student.
- Have Canvas display one question at a time. See guides: New Quizzes: Display One Question at a Time or Classic Quizzes.
- Use an exam timer of appropriate-length and provide accommodations for AES students. See guides: New Quizzes or Classic Quizzes.
- Schedule the exam availability window on Canvas so all students must complete it at the same time.
- Disable Student Result View to prevent early finishers from sharing answers and results with peers.
- Present your exam in a format that is more difficult to download or copy. For example, a downloadable PDF document is easy to share, whereas a series of Canvas quiz questions with one-per-page is cumbersome.
- Modify exam questions each term.
- Use browser lockdown software if required by an accrediting body.
- Have students complete a short oral exam via Zoom with rotating questions.
- Review the quiz log in Canvas to see what students are doing while writing.
- Use browser lockdown software if required by an accrediting body.
- Have students complete the written exam at different locations, while their cameras are on within a Zoom meeting.
Concerns very difficult to mitigate against regardless of strategy
- Students accessing information on a secondary device (e.g., cell phones) or taking pictures of exam content if they don’t believe they should not.
- Students losing internet connection and access to the exam.
While securing digital assessments presents significant challenges, by carefully considering the necessity and design of exams, and employing a layered approach with multiple strategies, you can enhance the integrity and validity of your assessments.
Get support
For support or a consultation on this topic, reach out to the team at the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning.