IP address management

IP address management

by Marko Nuskol -
Number of replies: 14

Hello again,

today's question is a different one. I don't even know if this is the right category to ask this. 🤐

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A brief background

We have about 180 students per year.

The total number of exams are in the range of 600.

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We have started tracking the IP addresses of our students taking the exams (using reports inside Moodle) so that we can try to expose those who are cheating (whether by having someone else take their exam or by sitting next to each other and using the same/similar IP).

After about 6 hours of Excel, I'm exhausted. 😰


Is there a better way to manage IP? A software, Moodle plugin, or something else that helps us sort and correlate all that data?

Maybe in the near future we'll use web cam proctoring, but for now we just want to do it via IP addresses.


Thanks for any help you can offer. 👾

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In reply to Marko Nuskol

Re: IP address management

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
I do the same thing: Track IP addresses to see if two or more students have taken the exam from the same location, similar times, and similar results. Yep, I have caught some students "cheating." (I tell students that they must take the exam with no one else nearby.)

I am attaching a query, Exam_Cheating.sql, that gets me very close to what I want to analyze.  I assume that you (or your Moodle admin) can run this query.  You will need to substitute your course and quiz numbers (see comments in this SQL file.)

Export the results to Excel for further analysis. (I am giving you a screenshot of my Excel function.

Attachment Find_Cheaters_in_Excel.png
Average of ratings: Useful (3)
In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: IP address management

by Marko Nuskol -
Thank you for the query file.
Since I am not a Moodle admin, I will forward this file to them.
Too bad there isn't a Moodle plugin that can parse the IP addresses and highlight if they are on the same router.
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In reply to Marko Nuskol

Re: IP address management

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
Without this query, my old method was to export the quiz results to Excel. Then, I would go to the course, Reports, Logs, and use the filtering to find the Exam, and under "All Actions" set this to Update. Then I would export this list, look for the duplicate IP addresses, and compare the results to the exported exam list. Yep, a bit more effort.

Incidentally, you can modify my query to get just the userid and IP, if you wish.

(Actually, I created that query just yesterday. I have been wanting to do this for a while, so your post, Marko, inspired me.)

Yes, if your admin is good with PHP and programming, they can create a plugin for you.
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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: IP address management

by Marko Nuskol -
I'm glad my question inspired you to cross something off your to-do list smile

My process is the same with logs and excel and filtering...it all depends on how many students and how many exams you have.

As with everything in life, we tend to look for the quick and easy...that's what I want to find now.
Some quick solution to free up more time to focus on other things ;)
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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: IP address management

by m question -
Thank you
I need a report like this, however, this sql does not show all students who took the exam
do you know why
thanks again
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In reply to Marko Nuskol

Re: IP address management

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi

I can understand that Excel is the wrong tool.
wink

What is the exact format of the data you want to have? As an example, a file per exam with two columns: userid, IP address.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: IP address management

by Marko Nuskol -
That is correct.
What I need is just two columns: userID (or name and last name) with their IP addresses.

I've managed to do this pretty quickly with Excel, but I'm struggling with identifying the IP addresses that use the same router (not network).

I don't want to accuse students of cheating if they don't! (For example, using the router they have in their dorm, or if their network has assigned them the same IP address as another student in a different part of town).
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In reply to Marko Nuskol

Re: IP address management

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
So what you want is to input the quiz ID, the number that comes after mod/quiz/view.php?id=, and get a list of user IDs (user/profile.php?id=) and the IP address as seen by Moodle?

I am not saying that there is no such mechanism in Moodle. I want to be clear what are you looking for.

And yes, you've found the no. 1 weakness of this approach. A shared IP address can have legitimate explanations. So you need a second (or third) index to support the first evidence. Let's leave those to a different discussion and look at how one could get the IP address list discussed. Before we proceed any further, only the site admin has that kind of access.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: IP address management

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
Yes, I have run into this "shared IP" issue. This seemed to occur when students were in computer labs on campus. My network admin said there was no way to determine the exact computers that 3 students were using (well, that's what he said???) But then I used Moodle's timestamps to see that these three students all began and finished their exams at approximately the same time. I called them out for "cheating." They didn't know that they could have claimed that they were in different computer labs. They reluctantly confessed.
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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: IP address management

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
To convince yourself about this "shared IP issue" visit a random "What is my IP" site from two devices in your home network roughly at the same time.
wink

About the exact computer, be happy that it is not easy. That would be a privacy nightmare. As we all know, the BIG are after that, for example with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_fingerprinting. Luckily Moodle knows no such thing.

The time stamp was the second vector. It was valid since your courses are "at your own pace". But loses validity in a synchronous exam.
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In reply to Marko Nuskol

Re: IP address management

by David Campbell -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers
You might want to contact Gordon Batseon (https://moodle.org/plugins/browse.php?list=contributor&id=8277) who manages the MoodleReader plugin. It has a feature that does what you want. We used to rely on it for checking students who took quizzes about books they had read. It automatically flags IP addresses that are in a certain range.
Average of ratings: Useful (3)
In reply to David Campbell

Re: IP address management

by Marko Nuskol -
Thank you.
I will contact Gordon Batseon to get his opinion on this IP matter.
That MoodleReader plugin looks great (too bad we don't need it, since we're in chemistry).
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In reply to Marko Nuskol

Re: IP address management

by Gordon Bateson -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
My opinion is that IP address alone is not enough, to detect the situation when one student is logged in as another student and taking an online quiz posing as the other student.

In the Reader module, there is a tool which tries to detect this type of "cheating", it extracts the IP address, the time the quiz was taken, the duration of the quiz attempt, and the score achieved. This information is presented in a report that the teacher may find useful in detecting students who are helping each other in this way.

However, the final decision on whether, and to what degree, "cheating" has occurred is done by the teacher, based on the information in the report. It is certainly not a watertight solution.
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In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: IP address management

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
Gordon, thanks for your post.

That SQL query that I posted provides essentially the same data that you suggest looking at. I will have to take a look at your plugin, which could be an easier approach.

Yes, students will always be looking for ways to "outsmart" the instructor. (Of course, I wish that they would spend their time trying to get smarter about the topic they are trying to learn.)

I still think that one of the best approaches is to use difficult randomized exams, which is what I always try to do.
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