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Proctoring Exams

28Feb’22

Promoting Integrity

This page includes resources for proctoring exams that promote academic integrity. While students have a responsibility to ensure their own academic integrity, instructors can reduce students’ temptation to act dishonestly even before the exam by providing students with clear guidance and designing exams to encourage integrity. Faculty show their commitment to academic integrity through effective and thoughtful proctoring and support for their TAs and LAs responsible for monitoring student work.

CETLI staff are available to meet with you to discuss your proctoring questions. 

On this page: 

Additionally, we have created a worksheet with questions to help you prepare for proctoring your exams. 

Proctoring Policies Worksheet

Reducing Student Stress

When students know what to expect on exams and have opportunities to practice they are less likely to take shortcuts or cheat. Ways you might ease student stress include: 

  • Give students a sense of the exam structure and types of questions ahead of time so they know what to expect. 
  • Talk to students about the types of exam questions to expect and communicate clear grading criteria. 
  • Encourage students to show work or explain reasoning. 
  • Reduce technical uncertainty by providing students with a low-stakes practice exam to check that technology works. 

Making Expectations Clear

To set your students up to succeed, clearly and consistently communicate your expectations for academic integrity on exams. Consider how to be transparent about your expectations about how the exam will proceed and clearly communicate that process with students and TAs and LAs.

Ahead of the exam, communicate with your TAs and LAs to make sure they understand what their role will be and how to respond to a violation during the exam. Make it clear for your students that TAs and LAs who act as proctors will enforce your policies around academic integrity and will have authority to interrupt academic misconduct. 

Some approaches to this conversation with students might include:  

  • Discuss why integrity matters. 
  • Explain what technology use is or isn't acceptable during the exam. For example, students can use calculators but not cell phones.  
  • Tell students that you will have different versions of the exam.
  • Explain who will be proctoring the exam and how the exam will be proctored.  
  • Define your AI policy for all exam scenarios. 
  • Have and communicate a consistent policy on re-grading. 
  • If you have students who need to take a test at the Center for Accommodated Testing, remind students to reserve a seat at the testing center through the MyWeingartenCenter student portal or by visiting the Weingarten Center during drop-in hours. Instructors will get notified of the test appointment and should review the appointment to ensure the information is correct and that students will not be taking the test before or after the rest of the class. 

Proctoring Exams

Whether you are proctoring a paper-based or computer-based exam, consider how you will reiterate your specific academic integrity expectations and monitor for compliance with your policies:   

  • Actively observe the room during the test. 
  • Regulate the use of electronic devices, including smart watches, or have students leave their backpacks and other belongings at the front of the room. 
  • Have a policy for when students need to leave the room or go to the restroom. 
  • If you have TAs or LAs proctoring, be sure to review the proctoring plan with them ahead of the exam, including what they can do if there is a potential violation that requires the faculty member’s intervention. 

  • Require that students show their Penn IDs so you know who is taking the exam. 
  • Separate students from each other while they take the exam. 
  • Limit students to the use of four-function calculators only. 
  • Make sure students do not bring prepared answers or prohibited materials. 
  • Announce ahead of time how many pages and problems are on the exam. Some departments even print that information on the first page of the exam. 
  • Scan or copy exams before returning them, so students do not change answers in requesting a re-grade. 

Before the exam, identify the environment and devices students will use:  

  • For smaller classes, consider reserving a computer lab to ensure students have access to the up-to-date software they will need. Instructors should contact the department that governs the lab they want to reserve. You can also contact the registrar to inquire about room availability.  
  • For larger classes, students will likely need to bring their own laptops (not tablets or mobile devices) for the exam. To ensure students are prepared:  
    • Work with your instructional technology staff to identify and communicate the minimum software and hardware requirements students need on their devices and share best practices for preparing their technology.  
    • Require practice exams or quizzes, which can help familiarize students with the exam setup and can help them make sure their technology is ready before the real exam. 

On the day of the exam: 

  • For Canvas Quizzes, provide a way for students to verify their submission prior to leaving the testing room, preventing them from continuing their attempt later. You can ask students to show their submission screen before leaving the room or have TAs monitor the Moderate Quiz area to check the submission status. 
    • Consider preventing students from leaving the exam room 20 minutes before the exam ends to ensure all student attempts are submitted properly at the end of the exam period set in Canvas. 
  • Consider having paper copies of the exam in case there are problems with students’ devices. 
  • Know who to contact for technical support. You can also ask if a technical support person can be in the room during the exam. 
  • Document any technical issues that students experience during the exam. 

Tools for proctoring computer-based exams 

Respondus

Consider using the Respondus lockdown browser to limit applications and resources students can access during an in-person, proctored exam.  

Canvas Quizzes

Make sure your settings are configured properly to promote a secure and appropriate testing environment. You can contact your school’s instructional technology staff to help you review and test these settings before your exam. 

  •  To prevent students from sharing answers or looking at others’ responses: 
    • Use question groups or question banks to randomize the quiz questions that students see during the exam. 
    • Do not allow multiple attempts for the exam. 
    • Do not let students see their responses or their correct answers until after the exam window has closed for all students or when grades are released. 
  • To make sure students have the correct amount of time to take the exam and can’t start earlier than allowed: 
    • Provide a time limit. Note that Canvas will automatically submit students’ exams once they reach the time limit.  
    • Apply any accommodations for individual students that require them, such as granting extra time on an online exam. 
    • If using an access code to prevent students from initiating the exam outside of the proctored environment, do not share the code before all students are seated for the exam.  
    • Set the due and availability dates carefully. If any students in the class are allowed extended time, make sure to set the available until time to at least a minute beyond that time so they are not closed out of the exam early. Students without accommodations will still be limited to the time limit set for the exam. 

For information on additional online assessment tools, visit CETLI’s resource page. 

Responding to Suspected Academic Integrity Violations while Proctoring

  • While you are considering how to respond to a potential violation, consider why you suspect a violation:
    • What is the evidence? Gather information: identify the student(s) involved, take note of details like the time, what portion of the exam, how long it went on before intervening, and create a seating chart that will help you contact witnesses at a later time.
    • Is there an alternative explanation besides a violation?
    • Are you unintentionally acting on bias?
  • If you suspect cheating during the exam, identify a way to interrupt the behavior without being disruptive to other students or singling out the student(s) in question.
  • In the event you think a student has used their phone for cheating on an exam, proctors and faculty can request that a student show you what was on their phone and how long they were on their phone before you intervened, but a student can decline.
  • If you choose, you can follow up with the Center for Community Standards and Accountability (CSA). 
    • You can have a confidential conversation with CSA without bringing a case. 
    • Instructors may choose to report the conduct to CSA, which may open an investigation. Only the instructor of record can make a report to CSA. Instructors are not obligated to do so. 
    • Importantly, CSA does not assign grades.  

If you have other questions about designing or proctoring exams, reach out to CETLI for additional support. 

Academic Integrity

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