While we understand clients may wish to maintain a simultaneous testing schedule, this is not a best practice in the online proctoring industry and we strongly recommend asynchronous testing. Online test-takers are dealing with technology and require flexibility.

Examity recommends a 24-48 hour window at a minimum. This is a result of our experience proctoring millions of exams combined with established best practices for online assessments. Some reasons for this recommendation include:

• Remote proctoring and effective test design limits and deters cheating behavior: Online is not the same as in-class testing. Utilizing test-platform functionality such as randomizing or pooling test questions, is an effective tool to ensure test question integrity.

• Alleviates test-taker anxiety: test-takers often manage competing priorities – school, jobs, families, and more. test-takers taking online courses may also struggle to find an appropriate test-taking environment at a set time. To help alleviate stress and accommodated test-takers’ unique personal needs, offering a broader testing window allows test-takers much-needed flexibility. For example, a parent with small children cannot find a quiet room alone to take a proctored assessment at 10 am, but they can successfully take their assessment alone at 9 pm once their children are asleep.

• Mitigates risk for technical issues: By having a staggered start if a technical issue is discovered only a limited number of test-takers would be impacted as the problem is rectified. With simultaneous assessments, any issues (e.g.: incorrect LMS configuration, password, question error) would impact all test-takers at the same time. Staggered starts also limit the surge of support requests to either Examity or to the client should a technical issue exist, thereby ensuring prompt support and a positive experience for test-takers.

• Improved test-taker experience: Test-taker feedback indicates satisfaction with online testing is largely determined by how quickly and smoothly test-takers access their assessment. When too many test-takers come into Examity at the same moment it takes longer to get them assigned to a proctor and launched.

 

Those that feel strongly about testing at the same time, might also consider overlapping test-taker start times in 30-minute increments so that many test-takers overlap.

As always, please reach out to your dedicated account manager and we will work with you to create a solution that works for you.