As part of Boston University, our online programs need to uphold the principles and values of the institution, as well as ensure compliance with the Federal Regulations for distance education outlined in the Higher Education Act 2008. To that end, the Boston University Office of Distance Education chose to use a system of Proctored Final Exams to meet our institutional and Federal responsibilities.
There were multiple goals the Boston University Office of Distance Education set out to achieve with Proctored Final Exams. These included: ensuring the rules of an exam were applied to every test, and to validate and document identity each for each student for every test. Additionally, the Boston University Office of Distance Education set a goal of providing convenient proctoring solutions that accommodated both Boston University's obligations and the needs of our national and international online student body. We saw this as an opportunity to enrich our relationship with the student body rather than just simply administering a secure exam.
The presentation will cover Boston University's use of a testing center network, a partnership with a remote proctoring company, ProctorCam; offering testing on-campus at Boston University, and options for students who cannot use the afore mentioned solutions. We will cover how each of these systems work, how they help ensure exam and program integrity and what individual test taker circumstances they solve. We will also explore how these solutions keep Boston University compliant with the HEA 2008.
In addition to covering how each proctoring option helps us achieve our goals for the institution and our students, our presentation will address the concerns and consideration we needed to keep in mind when we chose the proctoring solutions that would help us achieve our goals.
These concerns and considerations include:
• Cost for students
• Ease of Communication
o From Boston University to proctoring solution providers
o From Boston University to students
• Travel Considerations for students
Through communication with students we also realized that there were additional factors that determined which proctoring solutions served Boston University and our Online Student Body best. The presentation will investigate the proctoring solutions that students prefer and why. As will be the case throughout the presentation, we will explore this issue from both the perspective of Boston University and one of our proctor solution partners—ProctorCam.
The presentation will then explore the 4 options available to our students for scheduling a final exam, and how each options helps us achieve our stated goals for proctored exams. The exploration of each proctoring option will include information about the percentage of Boston University students that use each option each term, how each option achieves student identity verification, and how each maintains Boston University's academic integrity.
The 4 proctoring solutions Boston University offers students are:
• Traditional Test Centers
• On-Campus at Boston University
• Remote proctoring solution—ProctorCam
• Independent Proctor solutions
n the conclusion of the presentation we will discuss our satisfaction, as an institution, with the effectiveness of each of the 4 proctoring solutions Boston University uses. The presentation will also cover what we feel are best practices for proctored exams for online programs of any size, and how proctored exams can be an ongoing resource to maintain academic integrity—including student identity verification.
At the end of the presentation we will be open to any questions from the audience.
