Proctor guidelines

Proctor guidelines

by Susan Jeffers -
Number of replies: 2

Does anyone out there have a set of guidelines you've used in helping online students find a suitable local proctor for a final exam?  My entire course is online, but I am requiring a paper-and-pencil final exam, for which each student needs to find a proctor.  I will fax or mail the exam directly to the proctor, who will supervise the student taking the exam and then either fax or mail the exam to me. 

I've done this with one or two students at a time before, back when I required students to all assemble in one place for the final exam, which I supervised. But now that I have 20 students spread out across the globe it's a bit trickier.  There are 2 issues the proctor needs to watch over:  timing (it's a 2-hour exam) and use of outside resources (I allow the students to use 2 specific books but no other resources).

I've already had one student say that he has no idea who would be suitable -- possibly he just doesn't get out much --

Suggestions? 

Thanks!!!

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In reply to Susan Jeffers

Re: Proctor guidelines

by Irmgard Willcockson -
Susan, back when I took a distance class, the public library proctored exams. A local college may also be willing to proctor, the community college where I worked routinely proctored exams for its faculty.

My suggestion however is to design a course and an exam that does not require proctoring.  We are asking each student to sign and fax back an Honor Statement, saying that they will not use unauthorized resources.  Secondly, we are designing exams that cannot be answered by looking things up.  Thirdly, we are using the timing feature in the latest version of Moodle which allows us to time our 3 hour exams.  Fourthly, every student will receive a (slightly) different exam because some questions are pulled from question banks.  If you have involved essay questions with multiple parts, pulling from banks may not work, but parts of my exam are short answer type questions that can be pulled randomly.  It is taking a lot longer to create the exam, but it should be reusable for the next class with minor tweaking.

Caveat:  We are still building the exam, no students have actually yet taken the exam in Moodle, although we have had reasonable success with quizzes in the class.  All of our students are graduate students, adults, and sharing of exams and answers has never been a problem, even when the same test was given on paper year after year.

Good luck, Irmi
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In reply to Irmgard Willcockson

Re: Proctor guidelines

by Sue Elvins -
That's right. A proctored exam is usually done by someone who is a local college or perhaps a local library. For example, when I did my undergraduate degree my proctor was my public library and it worked out fantastic! They had a reference center with a head person who I had all my proctored exams sent to. There was two people that were on the list for the "in case of questions be sure to contact". I never had any problems.

Grant it, depending on the professor the exam was either the mid-term or the final but in either case it worked out really well for me. Needless to say, a few months after receiving my IT degree I began work towards my MBA. At any rate, it's been one heck of a ride.

To answer your issue with exams however. If you feel a student must take something that I have experienced which I thought was totally awesome with my university is their multiple choice. I'm not sure how they did it but when I had gone through the final exams online they were REALLY hard. I'd study like crazy but the way the questions were worded it was excellent because it really made you "think" about your answer and critique it before you clicked that box. Mind you, they were not trick questions however they were written very professional and very plurable.

Btw, everyone does things differently state to state, country to country so that is something to consider. But do what will best work for your students and fit your's and their needs. I'm not sure if I answered any (or all) of your questions but giving you knowledge from experience. Hope this helps!

Regards,

Sue
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