More college students are enrolling daily in online courses and this creates the need of increased anti cheating measures. The question that appears is weather you can trust a student to take an online exam on a personal computer from work or home. Such an environment makes it easy to take a look at the textbook or research information on the Internet. Is making him/her take the test in a controlled location the solution to this problem or will this draw them from the convenience that brought students to online courses in the first place?

A logical solution is putting a camera inside the student’s home and seems to be the most viable solution at the moment. Alabama’s Troy University will start to roll out new camera technology for a large part of their 11,000 online students. A device made by Cambridge is similar to other test-taking software and locks a computer while the test is being taken in order to stop him/her from searching the Internet. New versions also include fingerprint authentication.

All these solutions tend to become history because new technology developed consists of a small webcam and a microphone that is set up where students take exams. This camera can capture 360-degree images and it starts recording audio and video when the exam begins. Special software then detects noises and motions and they are flagged on the recording. The instructor can thus only watch these moments. Thus it can be seen if the test results were altered by cheating.

Weather or not the system will be successful can not yet be said. What is certain is that many universities offering online tests will start using it!