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Examinations are a fundamental form of assessment, but pose particular challenges in distance education. Outreach Credit Programs is committed to assisting faculty to ensure the greatest possible academic integrity in assessing students' achievement in courses delivered at a distance. A high standard of quality and integrity can be achieved through the exam design, a variety in types of assessment exercises, the protection of the exam from redistribution, and ultimately, the requirement of proctored exams where necessary.
UW Outreach School continues to explore technological, pedagogical, and policy strategies toward the goal of enhancing the security and integrity of student assessments.
Academic integrity in online exams can be enhanced by wise exam design and controlled management of the examination experience.
|Collaborative exam taking||Limit time; randomize questions; review times students take exam; review exam statistics for common incorrect answers; written, application, or problem solving questions; proctoring|
|Prohibited materials (books, notes)||Limit time; questions requiring conclusions, interpretation, problem solving, etc.; proctoring|
|Downloading or capturing exam for redistribution||ExamGuard; question pools; withhold correct answers from graded exam|
|Unauthorized test takers||Proctoring; course design incorporating multiple assessments|
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