Online Exam case of Bnmit

1. How Pro Ex AI Powered by HireMee is being used for proctored exams by educational institutions The case study of BNMIT which has successfully switched to online mode of testing Covid-19 took the world of education completely by surprise altering it completely. Who would have thought schools and colleges would function without physical classes? But even as institutions managed to transition to online mode to deliver education to their registered students, along came another challenge. How could they test the students remotely? The good news is that hurdle too has been successfully crossed. Let’s take the example of BNM Institute of Technology ( BNMIT ) to understand how educational institutions can function as effectively in virtual mode as in the normal offline mode. Background and context All academic activities in the country ground to a halt on March 15, 2020, a week before the nationwide lockdown was announced to contain spread Covid-19 pandemic. For BNMIT, a well-known technical education institution affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technology University, Belgaum, moving examinations online was a major pain point. There were three major requirements: The transition to the new methodology of examination should be simple. The examination should be secure and eliminate proxy test takers. All the students should be able to take the examinations from their home The Problem With no prospect of colleges opening for a long time, postponement of exams was not an option. The logical solution was to conduct the examinations online. But, there were several apprehensions: How difficult would it be to transition from offline to online examinations? How to conduct examinations for all the students at the same time? How to reach all the students at remote locations with limited internet bandwidth? Would the faculty accept a new technology platform for conduct examinations? How would the college proctor/invigilate the exams when the students take exam remotely? How would the college compile and distribute test reports and answer scripts? What about the security and privacy of the data of the faculty, students, and university?

2. THE SOLUTION After deliberations and research, BNMIT chose ProEx by HireMee AI proctored examination platform to conduct its internal tests online. The first online internal examination was conducted within a week and went a long way in allaying apprehensions. Simple Design The simple and intuitive design reduced the learning curve for the faculty significantly. The students had a comfortable experience while taking the test with both subjective and objective questions. A dedicated operations team ensured that every faculty was trained on the platform and became confident. Before migrating fully, the college received a practice account so that the faculty and students got comfortable with the platform. Reliable, robust and scalable A major challenge for students was the patchy quality of internet. Since ProEx by HireMee platform is designed to operate optimally even with low bandwidth connectivity the conduct of exams for students from different parts of the country was glitch free. Over 100 faculty members were able to conduct over 25,000 examinations concurrently. Digital identity matching mechanism To eliminate the problem of proxy test takers, the platform has a 3-tier AI algorithm for digital identity matching. This is enabled by sharing a 20-second video clip of every student, created using multiple photo grabs of the student during the test, with the Controller OR Registrar of Examinations. Some features such as question auto-selection, question randomization, navigation control, and window and image proctoring helped the college conduct examinations with less than a 5 per cent rejection rate. Detailed Test Reporting: At the end of the test, the college faculty was able to view the auto-graded objective type questions. They checked and graded the subjective questions with images, graphs, and diagrams with the text. The proctoring reports were also part of the detailed reports. There was also an option of distributing the test scripts to the students post examination and storing the hard copies for accreditation. All the data is stored in a secure server in an encrypted form and can be retrieved by the college on demand.

3. KEY OUTCOMES The faculty of the college were able to learn and use the ProEx by HireMee platform within 2 days. The college conducted 25000+ mock and internal examinations without any hiccups. Every student was able to take the examinations with objective and subjective questions. The AI-based proctoring ensured little scope of any malpractice. The reports were fair and justified. The faculty was able to view and grade the student's examination papers on the platform. The college distributed and stored examination scripts and results of the students. As Principal of BNMIT, Dr Krishnamurthy GN, summed it up, “The 2020 digital examination process at BNMIT was successful as the management proactively selected the right testing partner with a reliable testing platform. ”The positive mindset of the faculty played a significant role in the overall conduct, adds Dr Krishnamurthy, who served as Dean of examination at VTU, Belgaum.” Going Forward... BNMIT now plans to conduct its Computer Lab Examinations on the ProEx by HireMee examination platform. The adaptability, scalability, and robustness of the solution endeared itself to the institute. At least ten institutions are now either in the midst of administering their online examination or scheduled to do so using ProEx by HireMee platform. Many of these are the final examinations. In all nearly 20,000 students from these ten institutions spread across the length and breadth of the country are taking the proctored exams. Till date, ProEx by HireMee has completed over a quarter million AI proctored attempts, with a rejection of around 5 per cent attempts in the last 18 months in over 3000 colleges.