Digital proctoring in higher education: a systematic literature review

Abstract

PurposeTo improve the academic integrity of online examinations, digital proctoring systems have recently been implemented in higher education institutions (HEIs). The paper aims to understand how digital proctoring has been practised in higher education (HE) and proposes future research directions for studying digital proctoring in HE.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review was conducted. The PRISMA procedure was adapted for the literature search. The topics were identified by topic modelling techniques from 154 relevant publications in seven databases.FindingsSeven widely discussed topics in literature were identified, including solutions for detecting cheating and student authentication, challenges/issues of uptakes and students' performance in different proctoring environments.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper provides insights for academics, policymakers, practitioners and students to understand the implementation of digital proctoring in academia, its adoption by HEIs, impacts on students' and educators' performance and the rapid increase in its use for digital exams in HEIs, with particular emphasis on the impacts of the systems on digitalising examinations in HE.Originality/valueThis review paper has systematically and critically described the state-of-the-art literature on digital proctoring in HE and provides useful insights and implications for future research on digital proctoring, and how academic integrity in online examinations can be enhanced, along with digitalising HE.

Privacy as Contextual Integrity in Online Proctoring Systems in Higher Education: A Scoping Review

“…The OPS in higher education are evolving rapidly (Han et al, 2022). This paper provided a scoping literature review that examined privacy issues related to the use of OPS in higher education through the lens of the privacy as contextual integrity theory (Nissenbaum, 2010).…”

“…The use of online proctoring systems (OPS) in higher education has been rapidly evolving during the last few years (Han et al, 2022). The motivation for adopting these tools lies in their perceived ability to provide integrity, authentication, authorization, and operational control of online exams in remote environments (Nigam et al, 2021).…”

Auditable Anonymous Electronic Examination

“…We propose implementing a proctoring system that operates on the candidate's device. This system could capture video, audio or other relevant data [52]. Importantly, the review of these recordings would not occur during the exam, so as to uphold the anonymity requirements.…”

ChatGPT: The End of Online Exam Integrity?

“…Studies have discussed mitigations like the use of LLM text-detection tools [34]. In an effort to uphold academic integrity HEIs have implemented various measures, including technological interventions like digital proctoring systems [6,35,36]. Other studies have called for recasting examination and assessment questions so that they require higher-order thinking and critical reasoning skills [37,38] instead of merely factual recall.…”