A Dynamic Profile Questions Approach to Mitigate Impersonation in Online Examinations

Abstract

Online examinations are an integral component of many online learning environments, which face many security challenges. Collusion is seen as a major security threat to such examinations, when a student invites a third party to impersonate or abet in a test. This work aims to strengthen the authentication of students via the use of dynamic profile questions. The study reported in this paper involved 31 online participants from five countries over a five-week period. The results of usability and security analysis are reported. The dynamic profile questions were more usable than both the text-based and image-based questions (p < 0.01). An impersonation abuse scenario was simulated using email and mobile phone. The impersonation attack via email was not successful, however, students were able to share answers to dynamic profile questions with a third party impersonator in real time, which resulted in 93% correct answers. The sharing of information via phone took place in real time during Abrar Ullah ( ) Llandaff Campus, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Cardiff, CF5 2YB, UK e-mail: aaaullah@cardiffmet.ac.uk Hannan Xiao · Trevor Barker College Lane Campus, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB, UK e-mail: h.xiao@herts.ac.ukTrevor Barker e-mail: t.1.barker@herts.ac.uk an online test and the response time of an impersonator was significantly different (p < 0.01) than a student. The study also revealed that a response time factor may be implemented to identify and report impersonation attacks.

Knowledge based Authentication Techniques and Challenges

“…From previous researches, we found that it is very important to find a way to evaluate authentications for various platform's policies [9,10,29]. The evaluation criteria are built based on a combination of three parts: password intensity, guessability percentage rate, and entropy measurement.…”

A Multi-factor Authentication Method for Security of Online Examinations

“…The focus and research context of this work relates to summative assessment or remote online examinations. The growth in the use of online learning in higher education has been documented and reported in many studies [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. It has attracted significant research focus on developing and delivering secure, efficient and effective learning environments.…”

“…In a similar vein, the use of image-based questions revealed improved usability [13], however, these questions were not sufficient to mitigate impersonation and abetting. In order to address the security issues, the authors proposed dynamic profile questions [7]. These questions are created in the background when a student performs learning activities.…”

“…To access an online assessment, the student is presented with a subset of questions randomly extracted from his/her profile. In a recent study, the authors conducted a focus group study [6] with online programme tutors who recommended the use of dynamic profile questions [7], remote proctoring [14], and a secure browser to mitigate impersonation and abetting attacks.…”

“…The focus group study presented in an earlier study indicates that the use of dynamic profile questions with a secure browser and proctoring (ProctorU) [14] can positively influence collusion attacks. As described above, the dynamic profile questions are created non-intrusively and non-distractingly in the background when a student performs learning activities [7]. Using this method, a student's profile is built and consolidated in the background during the learning process.…”