Zoom and online proctoring at IU

When conducting assessment in courses taught online at Indiana University, it is important to only use services that have been vetted for assessment at IU. While UITS understands that faculty may view Zoom as a service that would facilitate proctoring in their courses, Zoom has not been approved for use as a proctoring service.

IU does not recommend that instructors use Zoom to monitor or proctor an exam. Instructors should not require students to be present via Zoom during an exam. This recommendation is based on the following considerations.

• Issues to consider when using any technology for proctoring:
  • Limited access to the internet: Some students have low quality internet, and others are in households with multiple users who are either schooling or working from home; even those with reasonably good internet might face connectivity issues.
  • Limited access to devices: Not every student is in a household with multiple devices. A household might have multiple devices, but not enough for the number of people who need simultaneous access. Additionally, some devices may not meet the standards required for use with online tools like Zoom and Examity.
  • Limited access to other technologies: Not every household has access to a printer, scanner, or webcam. Webcams are an integral part of online proctoring for recording an exam. Additionally, students may not be able to print paper materials if they are required for an exam, or scan and upload final exam documents or scrap work after an exam.
  • Time zone: Many IU students are outside the US or spread out across the country.
• Issues specific to Zoom:
  • Fairness: Limitations on an instructor's ability to monitor all students equally may exist. Remote proctoring requires specific training, and instructors have usually not been trained to serve as effective remote proctors.
  • Limited monitoring: While Zoom allows instructors to view test takers, it does not allow instructors to monitor other activities students engage in on their devices. Other tools, like Examity, allow instructors to better monitor or limit these activities during the testing session.
  • Privacy: Students are concerned about privacy, and Zoom allows classmates access to their lives that those classmates would not normally have.
  • Data storage: Since Zoom is not a proctoring service, IU does not have a data agreement in place for how this data is transmitted and stored that meets the expectation of an enterprise proctoring service.

IU continues to recommend alternative assessments to avoid the use of proctoring, which is not the best form of assessment in online courses. However, proctoring may be unavoidable in some cases. To ensure integrity, the services and technologies that have been approved for online assessment at IU include:

• Examity: Examity has been approved for use with IU online proctoring at IU, and integrates with Canvas and ExamSoft. UITS piloted Examity for two years to meet the online proctoring needs of IU Online. To learn more about using Examity at IU, see About online proctoring at IU.
• Canvas Quizzes: The Quizzes tool can be used for both low-stakes assessments (for example, quizzes, practice quizzes, or surveys) and high-stakes assessments (tests or exams).
• Quick Check: Quick Check is a tool that makes it easy to create low-stakes quizzes that appear at the bottom of Canvas content.