How to Choose the Best Online Proctoring Solution for Your Professional Association

Growing your professional association relies on increasing certifications while still protecting the integrity and reputation of your credentialing program. With the rapid shift to online learning and working, online proctoring is booming, providing licensing bodies with both opportunities and obstacles.

If you provide licenses or certifications of any sort, you can begin using online proctoring to your advantage. Remote exams allow you to offer access and flexibility to large geographic audiences, plus professionals reluctant to commit to certification because of time and travel investment.

However, online exam proctoring requires significant considerations, such as student data security, exam integrity, and technical support issues. This post will highlight the ways online proctoring can help grow your certification program without jeopardizing your reputation. We’ll also cover common security and exam integrity issues to be aware of and how you can safeguard both your organization and participants.

Considerations for finding the right online proctoring solution

Step 1: Understand your organizations’ priorities before evaluating brands

When an organization realizes the value of online proctoring, they usually jump into comparing proctoring vendors right away. To avoid wasting time and energy sifting through all the options on the market, first figure out what your organization needs.

Colleges, universities, small businesses, and tech companies that need a secure, seamless way to evaluate their students and employees are all using online proctoring. However, as an association that administers licenses and certifications, your top priorities could look different than other organizations.

The top considerations for certification bodies and associations are:

1. Protection of sensitive test-taker data
   
   It is essential to verify the identity of the people who will take your exam. Therefore, a level of identity verification will be necessary. It's your organization's responsibility to properly store the sensitive personal data that you've become the keeper of. It's your responsibility to prevent the data from being leaked.
   
   
2. The security of your exam materials
   
   You likely invested a lot of time, money, and energy into developing your exam materials. Choosing a platform with the highest security standards is especially important if you’re in a competitive industry.
   
   
3. Retaining your certification's value by upholding your reputation
   
   Your organization's reputation is its lifeblood. Therefore, you need your certification to continue to be valued in the market. When your certification is sought-after and respected in your industry, employers will value it more, and participants will be more inclined to obtain it.

The proctoring software you choose should have cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) that records test-takers during exams and flags suspicious behavior. Proctoring that's entirely automated is perfect for low-stakes exams. However, your high-stakes exams require features that hand off flagged behavior to human auditors who can make the final judgment.

Step 2: Look for a solution that offers the features you need

Companies and their hiring departments expect your program to certify only the best candidates. Therefore, these organizations must trust that the coursework is rigorous and credible for your program to succeed. On the flipside, certification candidates should know the program they're investing in is respected, competitive, and secure.

To choose a solution that helps uphold and boost your reputation in your industry, look for the following features:

1. Top-notch security to protect private student information
   
   Facial feature ID detection is essential for verifying the identity of test-takers. Ensure that your online proctoring solution safeguards sensitive test-taker information, never sharing it with third parties. Additionally, you should purge raw data every 30 days. Any remaining data will be stored for one year by default. Proctoring vendors should be able to handle data purging requests quickly and appropriately.
   
   
2. A secure platform that prevents leaks and plagiarism
   
   A secure online proctoring program protects your hard-earned exam materials from leaks and plagiarism. When you think about our nation's most important jobs that require high levels of competence to ensure safety (nurses, pilots, building inspectors), it makes sense that the institutions hiring them are confident in their abilities.
   
   With a secure online proctoring platform, you can rest assured that test-takers did not gain unauthorized access to leaked test questions. Additionally, the security of your platform prevents your competitors from copying your materials.
   
   
3. A blend of human and AI supervision to protect your organization
   
   Low-stakes exams can be entirely proctored with AI, but high-stakes tests should have a combination of automated proctoring and human oversight. Even though proctoring solutions use advanced artificial intelligence, they cannot replace human judgment or ethics. Several instances have been reported regarding the unfortunate higher frequency of flagging people of color and those with disabilities. Your organization must review all anomalies flagged by your software for final judgment to prevent inequity.

Step 3: Choose a non-invasive solution that integrates with your existing technology

Choose a proctoring solution that integrates with your existing programs and doesn't require creating a separate login. Select an online proctoring solution based on the technology you already have so it can integrate seamlessly with your LMS. If your organization doesn’t currently use a learning platform, choose a proctoring program that can function as a standalone solution.

Step 4: Make sure you’ll receive adequate tech support and hands-on guidance

Although some organizations have the advantage of having an administrator assigned to their learning management system (LMS) and proctoring software, many professional associations do not. Therefore, you should carefully vet the tech support of any online proctoring solution you are considering. You may be relying on them heavily in place of an individual responsible for the issue.

You can evaluate a proctoring vendor's technical support by asking these questions:

• What is their onboarding process? Find out how your vendor onboards new clients. The best proctoring companies help you navigate the process and teach various stakeholders in your organization. Their onboarding process should give you the sense that they are invested in your success.
  
  
• What are their support hours? One of the benefits of a flexible testing solution is that participants can take exams when convenient for them. Because of this, the proctoring brand you choose should provide extended support hours and accommodate non-traditional schedules of test-takers.
  
  
• What is their response time for tech support requests? A seamless exam process is essential to your participants' overall experience with your organization and their ability to perform well. Get a guarantee from your proctoring brand that their wait times for tech issues will be less than two minutes.

Choosing the Best Online Proctoring Software for Your Organization

Offering seamless online proctoring solutions boosts the reputation of certification programs offered by professional associations and credentialing bodies. In addition, you can grow your certification numbers and reach a wider audience by offering secure, remote exams.

Take stock of the features and capabilities your proctoring software will need before you begin evaluating solutions. Once you know your organization’s needs, look for platforms with seamless integration features, adequate security protocols, and responsive customer support.

As remote work and learning continue to expand, you’ll need flexible and user-friendly solutions for exams that also safeguards your private information and protects your reputation.

Ready to learn more about online proctoring and how it could benefit your organization? Download our case study on Trade Association Certification Exams Simplified with Online Proctoring, featuring the National Fireplace Institute. 

You can also schedule a free ProctorFree demo here.