Rutgers.eduColleagues:
The move to remote instruction has been a challenging one in many ways, including for faculty members seeking to conduct remote assessments of student learning. Remote exams provide a number of complications, including how—and whether—to proctor these exams to discourage and prevent cheating. Tools exist for remote proctoring, but they are imperfect, at best, and our students find them onerous due to privacy and security concerns.
There’s no one solution to this issue, but as you plan how to assess your students, we would encourage you to consider a variety of options before settling upon the use of traditional, proctored exams. Consider consulting these resources with alternatives to proctored exams as a way to think through the options.
At the same time, we recognize the need for remote proctoring in some circumstances. As you may know, Rutgers discontinued the use of Proctortrack following the company’s announcement of a security incident. With that in mind, Respondus Monitor is now available in Canvas for Rutgers instructors seeking a replacement for Proctortrack. Respondus has been used previously at Rutgers, and technology staff at Rutgers recently met with the Respondus team to conduct a thorough technical vetting of the tool to ensure its appropriateness and reliability.
Respondus is not available for Sakai. If you currently use Sakai and need to administer proctored exams, we recommend you connect with the appropriate instructional technology support group (contacts below) to transition to Respondus in Canvas for the purpose of conducting your exams.
Additionally, we do not recommend using Zoom, Webex, or other video conferencing tools for proctoring, as they were not designed for this purpose. These tools should only be used for proctoring in specific situations, such as make-up exams with one student and one instructor.
As we plan for the spring semester, university academic and technology leaders are consulting with faculty and others on additional processes to govern the use of proctoring software. A key focus of these efforts will likely be a review and approval process to ensure that assessments warrant the use of online proctoring.
We appreciate your patience and cooperation as we work through these issues for the benefit of Rutgers faculty and students. See the latest information about remote exams and online proctoring.
To learn more about Respondus Monitor, please consult the available documentation. If you have questions or need assistance in seeking appropriate learning technologies, please reach out to these contacts:
- Rutgers University–Newark: help@newark.rutgers.edu
- Rutgers University–Camden: idt@camden.rutgers.edu
- Rutgers University–New Brunswick and Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences: sakai@rutgers.edu (for Sakai), help@canvas.rutgers.edu (for Canvas), or your local instructional support group
Thank you,
Michele Norin
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Prabhas V. Moghe
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Distinguished Professor