Online Testing and Cheating

Submitted by admin on Tue, 02/12/2008 - 01:00

I saw an interesting question on the ASTD Discussion Boards on preventing cheating with online testing.  We faced this problem with numerous clients.  Some of the things we did to reduce cheating included:

  • Create a large test bank of questions from which we drew a random subset.  We also randomized the answers This prevented people from sharing answers. 
  • Made sure that the tutorial portion of the e-learning could not be opened while the test was being taken.
  • Timed the test and ran reports on the students taking the test.  We ended up checking on folks who ran through the test a bit too quickly.

If it is important to insure the integrity of the test then a proctored environment is necessary.  It is impossible to prevent cheating in a non-proctored environment.