SUS News

UMUC has a successful history of offering online education since the early 1990s. However, questions quickly arose among skeptics concerning student-identity authentication and academic dishonesty. With students completing all of their work on a computer some distance from the instructor, some feared that students would gain unfair assistance or perhaps even hire someone else to do the work.

The School of Undergraduate Studies chose to quell fears of academic dishonesty and identity fraud on final examinations by requiring proctored face-to-face exams for every online course. The paper-and-pencil version currently comprises 80% of final exams, and they are administered at testing locations across Maryland. The remaining 20% of final exams are computer-based and are administered in computer labs at various locations in the state. Students must travel to the centers to take their exam. Outside of Maryland, students must make their own arrangements to take the final exam at a proctored center.

The positive aspects of this process are that students who take a proctored final exam must show proof of identity, and they must demonstrate their knowledge with no assistance during the examination.

However, the proctored face-to-face final exam process also has several downsides including

• the inability to use authentic forms of assessment (e.g., final projects or portfolios) that allow students to demonstrate what they can do in a more applied and real-world manner;
• the requirement that students travel to testing sites which is inconsistent with the convenience for which online learning is recognized;
• the ongoing risk of exams being lost in the mail; and
• the onerous testing process that requires renting large facilities (e.g., Cole Field House) and hiring substantial numbers of proctors three times a year.

To address these issues, I formed a task force of faculty and staff from all three divisions, our support units, and from our friends in the graduate school. The Task Force members were charged with reviewing learning assessment in courses from a learning perspective--by considering (1) our purpose in assessing student learning at the end of a course and (2) appropriate methods of assessment that would most effectively meet our goals.

An interesting wrinkle appeared just as the work was being concluded by our task force. The Higher Educational Opportunity Act (HEOA) was enacted on August 14, 2008 (See http://www.ed.gov/policy/highered/leg/hea08/index.html). The HEOA includes a section under Title IV that deals with the regional accreditation of higher education institutions. In a subsection entitled Program Integrity that deals specifically with distance education, the HEOA states:

....the agency or association requires an institution that offers distance education or correspondence education to have processes through which the institution establishes that the student who registers in a distance education or correspondence education course or program is the same student who participates in and completes the program and receives the academic credit.

In conversations with representatives from the Department of Education and regional accrediting bodies, UMUC personnel have learned that standards will be developed for member institutions, but these standards will not be completed until 2010 at the earliest. In the meantime, regional accrediting agencies are directing member institutions to have a process in place to establish student identity, but the particular method is not being dictated at this time.

Note also that the HEOA statement does not tie student identity authentication to a final exam, nor does it imply that technology must be used. This wording allows for identity authentication to occur at various times in a course or program, not just at the time of a final exam. And while technology is not required, we are discovering that technology can help us create a more flexible and accessible final exam and/or identity authentication process.

SUS's current online proctoring process meets the requirements set up by HEOA, but it is not as flexible or accessible as we might want for our students. We will ensure that any changes to the process align with federal policy.

Recommendations from the Task Force

The Task Force made the following recommendations:

• Approach the issue of course-based assessments from a learning perspective. The task force developed guiding principles which firmly embed course assessment in the larger teaching and learning process. We need to ask if our course assessments are effectively and efficiently helping us to determine if students are achieving relevant outcomes.
• Decouple the assessment of learning from the prevention of academic dishonesty. Currently, our model uses the same tool--high-stakes, face-to-face proctored final exams--to simultaneously measure student learning in the course and to ensure academic integrity. Our programs and students will be better served if we develop more powerful and practical assessments and use other methods to minimize academic dishonesty.
• Emphasize authentic assessment; assess student performance of real-world tasks. In doing so, students will demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills. Developing student competencies through application should also help students apply critical-thinking and problem-solving skills that they can use in their chosen careers.
• Use proctored final exams periodically across a student's program of study to ensure identity and integrity. The move toward Computer-Based Testing should progress with all due speed toward the goal of offering 95 percent of final exams via computer by the fall of 2010. Computer-based final exams can be administered at testing centers (e.g., UMUC computer labs, Pearson-Vue centers) or in students' homes with the appropriate levels of security in place.
• Continue to explore solutions that allow for in-home identity authentication and prevention of academic dishonesty. New technological solutions are arising regularly, and we should pilot and select an appropriate and secure in-home testing solution.
• Design more reliable and valid common exams and develop simple ways for faculty administering non-common final exams to develop effective exams easily (e.g., test-item banks from which faculty can choose questions).

Implementation and Action Plan

To implement the suggestions of the task force, SUS is doing the following:

• Converting all final exams from paper-based to computer-based by December of 2010
• Forming a network of national testing centers that will allow students to take their computer-based final exam at a location close to home
• Piloting and implementing a technological in-home proctored exam solution so that students may opt to take their exam where they take their course--in their homes.
• Reviewing and enhancing final exam development to assure that course learning objectives are being assessed adequately
• Determining, by program, which courses will utilize a proctored final exam and which courses will use an authentic form of summative assessment (e.g., project, portfolio, case study)
• Piloting and implementing a method to authenticate student identity at random times during an online course so that identity authentication is not tied only to a proctored final exam.

At the end of our work in late 2010, we will have a system in place that

• Assesses student learning at the course level more easily and effectively
• Provides a variety of rich methods to assess student learning
• Provides greater convenience for students
• Allows SUS to focus on student learning to a greater degree rather than on the operational details of paper-and-pencil final exams

Our goals are straightforward: assess learning in courses more effectively and efficiently, keeping in mind the ongoing guidance from the Federal government. We are poised to have a state-of-the-art system that will serve our students well while reducing the demands on our faculty and staff. We will regularly update all academic personnel as the changes are planned and implemented.

~Marie Cini