ProctorU Live+ Adds AI for Effectiveness
ProctorU users may have noticed changes to the service recently. The online proctoring platform recently added an artificial intelligence component to support its live proctors.
In ProctorU Live+, students still connect with a live proctor while the artificial intelligence program watches for eye movements, looking off screen, changes in lighting, or changes in audio, for instance, noting those events in real time.
Meanwhile, the proctor is able to validate or invalidate those events, improving the artificial intelligence program’s effectiveness over time.
“It’s a more secure proctoring platform because humans are not perfect,” says ProctorU account manager Elizabeth Gray. “They might not catch something, but there’s always the AI that’s watching so if the AI flags something, (the proctor) can just jump back to where that happens in the video (to review).”
Instructors can also now view test takers in real time and receive instant incident notifications.
“We won’t notify you of every single incident that the AI flags, but if you want to look in and watch the video while they’re testing in real time, you can do that,” Gray says.
After installing the ProctorU browser plugin (Chrome, Firefox), instructors can review test taker videos in their browser window and navigate directly to moments in the video where the AI or proctor flagged an incident, identified by a yellow dot.
Although these incidents shouldn’t be ignored entirely, many will likely be innocuous. Instructors will receive an email report within four to six hours if something serious arises in a proctoring session.
“When you get an email report, that means someone on our team reviewed that session because there was something flagged by both the AI and our proctor,” explains Georgia Hux, also with ProctorU. “They’ll actually give you a full review of the session. It’s an investigation, basically.”
Faculty will continue to add ProctorU to their courses and create exams in the same way they have in the past. Remember: When setting the time for first and last appointments, the last appointment should be the time the exam closes, minus an hour, minus the exam duration.
So for an hour-long exam that closes at midnight, the last appointment time would be 10 p.m.
“We just want to make sure we reserve enough time for the students to connect to the Proctor, go through the startup process and still have the full duration to go through the exam before it closes on them,” says ProctorU faculty representative Nimisha Adamson.
For students, ProctorU requires Chrome or Firefox browsers. Student users must also download the ProctorU browser extension before they begin their exam.
The new extension performs a series of system checks for webcam, volume, lighting, and port functionality.
How much students pay per exam depends on the length of the exam and when they schedule. If they schedule at least 72 hours before the exam, it’s about $15 for an hour-long exam. Less than 72 hours from exam time, students will begin to incur additional fees.
To support students as they prepare for proctored exams, the Instructional Support Team has created a Moodle course add-on with links to documents and the ProctorU test-taker resource page, videos on what to expect, FAQs and a checklist instructors can include at the beginning of the course, as well as prior to the actual exam.
“It takes an effort to teach or show students how to use a tool like ProctorU, and we want to ease that burden for you,” says Instructional Technologist Mike Williams.
The Instructional Support Team can import these materials directly into a Moodle course at a faculty member’s request.
Williams said team members can also work with faculty who need to modify the materials to fit their course.
The Instructional Support Team recently held a webinar featuring demonstrations of how to add ProctorU to a course, how to create an exam, how to review incidents, as well as a walk-through of student support materials.
If you’d like a link to the webinar recording or would like to work with an Instructional Support Team member on including ProctorU in your course, email distancelearning@louisiana.edu.