OP4RE poster presentation @ NACADA conference, Hasselt

From 8 to 11 July 2019, Hasselt University hosted the NACADA congress. Silvester Draaijer was present for a poster presentation, about students’ fears and uncertainties when using online proctoring.

Multiplier Event impressions

Some impressions from the Multiplier event on the 28th of June 2019.

Last TNM and preparation Multiplier Event

Today (June 27th 2019) we have our last transnational meeting of the OP4RE project. The work for the last months is being discussed and we are preparing for tomorrow’s multiplier event.

Penetration tests on ProctorExam Platform

The OP4RE Consortium required a Grey Box Infrastructure Penetration Test and a WebApp Penetration Test on their information environment hosting the Proctor Exam platform.

The scope was to identify whether students could abuse the platform via a set of scenarios agreed between the test team and the owners of the ProctorExam platform.

You can read the full report here.

Online conference by LERU

Thematic Group e-learning of the League of European Universities (LERU) organized an online conference on e-learning developments.

The Blended Conference comprises a‘virtual’ online pre-conference and a ‘face to face’ event in Utrecht. The aims of the conference were to build a network of expertise, to seek cooperation, to share and develop ideas and practical solutions about digital education and develop recommendations and guidelines. In the online pre-conference, Sabina Bottin (UPMC Paris) and Silvester Draaijer (VU Amsterdam), members of the OP4RE team, provided a session on ‘E-certification – Online proctoring for VE’ on 27 November 2018. They explained the goals and intermediate results of the OP4RE project and engaged in discussion with experts from various countries. Watch the video (1:03).

Multiplier Event: June 28th 2019

We invite all our Associate partners to join us as we share the final outcomes from our 3-year Online Proctoring for Remote Examinations (OP4RE), an Erasmus+ funded project.

Identified by our commercial partner, ProctorExam, as currently the ‘largest global research project into online assessment’, the outcomes from OP4RE are expected to set the standard  for online proctoring and offer a significant contribution to the field of delivering safe and secure online examinations. The outcomes are relevant not just to other European countries and our EU funders, but will be of broader international interest as well.

On June 28^th the OP4RE partners will be sharing recommendations relating to the following areas of conducting online examinations:

• Assuring proper Accreditation for online examinations
• Managing a secure remote examination environment;
• The development of Rule books according to European legislation remote proctoring,
• Building an excellent Student experience of online proctored examination
• And ensuring the Privacy of student data throughout the proctoring and assessment process

Booking: Places are limited for this event and we expect much interest from the wider education environment. Booking will open at the end of March 2019 for our Associate Partners exclusively, before it is opened more widely to other interested parties. Initially we will allow up to 2 delegates from each Associate Partner to register. More details are on the OP4RE website which will be updated regularly.

Location: The location of the OP4RE multiplier event is ‘The Fielder Conference Centre’, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK.

Hatfield is straightforward to access by train from London within 30 minutes, including via the Eurostar, and it is easily accessible from local motorways by car. It is convenient for Luton airport and there are transport connections via London to the other London airports.

There are local hotels to suit all budgets and this semi-rural area of Hertfordshire offers many historic towns and tourist sites for those who can stay for a longer visit.

Interested to attend this event?  Leave your contact details here.

OP4RE-project @ TEA Conference 2018

On December 10th and 11th, 2018 several colleagues from the OP4RE project attended the TEA Conference in Amsterdam.

Amanda Jefferies presented in a paper session on: Support online distance learners taking assessments: reviewing the options for remote vigilation.
Pierre Beust explained more about online proctoring in France: Remote monitoring of examinations at the students’ home in French university distance learning.

In addition, 2 posters were presented:

• The OP4RE project. Mitigating students’ anxiety and concerns when using online exam proctoring for the first time, by Gwendoline Somers & Silvester Draaijer A0 – Anxiety Poster vFinal
• A lawful basis for online proctoring, by Youssef Fouad, Arno Lodder & Silvester Draaijer. A0 – Lawful basis for Online Proctoring vFinal

Save the date: OP4RE Multiplier Event

On the 28th of June 2019 the OP4RE project will organize a multiplier event at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. More info: coming soon.

Interested to participate? Leave your contact details here.

OP4RE in News Tank Exclusif

Silvester Draaijer and Daniel Haven comment on online proctoring of remote examinations, as a tool for long-term change and the OP4RE-project in News Tank Exclusif.

The Erasmus+OP4RE research project is dedicated to studying the deployment of remote examination monitoring solutions. “This European consortium makes it possible to move the boundaries: we create documentation on practices for institutions and the professionals concerned.”

Silvester frames the origin of the project. “OP4RE is an Erasmus+ project which started in 2016. Its objective is to use technological advances to improve citizens’ access to higher education and to seek to modernise education and training. In this sense, remote monitoring of exams helps to improve access to a wide variety of targets for existing and potential students, by providing them with opportunities to study from a distance and take their exams from a distance. This is the concept of “any time, anywhere” for taking  an exam.”

Proctor Exam was involved in this project from the beginning. Other members, forming the strategic board of this project, are, : the Free University of Amsterdam, the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, University of Hertfordshire, Hasselt University, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, Wilhelm Büchner University of Applied Sciences, FIED (Fédération interuniversitaire d’enseignement à distance), in addition to 20 Associate Partners from across Europe.

The project is still in the experimental stage. Several countries are developing initiatives on the subject to meet a need that is identified and awaiting a response.

Daniel Haven states: “Quite clearly, the countries with the most advanced markets are those where a company offering a remote test monitoring service is located. We see this with the example of the Netherlands, but it is also the case with Spain, which has Smowl. A company that is present works the market, informs it of trends and pursues a communication logic to support the structuring of the offer. In France, it is a little different, it is the FIED that plays this role.”

ProctorExam is the only Edtech company that is a strategic partner of the European consortium OP4RE. It’s Daniel’s opinion that the market is facing the need to build its long-term vision to take into account digital transformation.

It costs 10€ to have a supervisor supervise one hour of a student’s exam. Therefore, justifying your investment for mass use is difficult. Don’t you think that remote monitoring of exams is destined to remain in a niche market? Silvester Draaijer: “This is a question that was raised in our working group, even if OP4RE does not have the  solution to answer this problem in the immediate future, because it also depends on market players.”

What about fraud? In Silvester Draaijer’s opinion, remote monitoring of exams is more fraud-resistant than traditional monitoring, due to the control process itself.  The simultaneous recording of the various video channels, including that of the student’s computer screen, makes it possible to ensure that the candidate’s activity is recorded during and after the test.

A potential barrier concerns confidentiality in the processing of personal data. This is the subject of the group’s working seminar in Paris, on 05/10/2018. “Remote monitoring creates the processing of personal and sensitive data that must be analysed and monitored. It is in this sense that we will work with these specialists in the subject, who themselves are in contact with the Cnil. Imagine all the scenarios used to define the processing operations. We also invited a consultant from PricewaterhouseCoopers, who specializes in data legislation. The work on impact assessments under the DGPS should make it possible to standardise practices in the European Union, bearing in mind that we must also take into account certain legal provisions that are specific to each Member State because of the margin left since the entry into law of the European Regulation.

Another working issue for OP4RE concerns data transit situations between countries within and outside the EU, or with students from outside Europe. At the moment, we must imagine all the possible scenarios of use in order to define the approach to take  as precisely as possible.”

Within the European consortium it is possible to develop new boundaries and to create documentation on practices for institutions and the professionals concerned.