After a slight lull in COVID-19 numbers, the US is seeing yet another massive surge in daily infections — with as many as a million new cases per day. Georgia is one of the many states that heavily contribute to the daily infection numbers, forcing several schools in the region to continue with online lectures and student assessments. To maintain the credibility of online tests, such schools use various online proctoring tools and platforms. The Richmond County School System, a renowned public school system based in Augusta, Georgia, is the latest educational body to go down the online proctoring route. All institutes across the Richmond County School System will employ uLearn, a prominent online proctoring platform, to streamline remote examinations for their students. uLearn’s AI-based proctoring tool is expected to optimize the school system’s online exams in a few ways:

Increased credibility and data safety of remote assessments:

uLearn’s digitized proctoring platform uses machine learning to monitor students during remotely taken assessments. Candidates are flagged for cheating by the AI algorithm if they attempt to use malicious means to unfairly score higher grades during an assessment. Additionally, uLearn will enable the Richmond County School System to conduct online tests autonomously. This makes it possible for online exams to be conducted for any number of students simultaneously, increasing the scalability aspect of such assessments for the school system.

Online tests require students to enter their personal details in the online proctoring platform. This generally makes data security a point of contention for learners and parents. To address this concern, the tests conducted on uLearn are end-to-end encrypted, safeguarding candidate data and using it for examination purposes only. Additionally, the usage of candidate data will be based on the authorization of the school.

Simplified execution of the hybrid assessment model:

Despite online schooling being the dominant learning option currently, several schools are requesting students to physically attend assessments and other academic events conducted within their premises. This necessitates the adoption of hybrid classrooms — assessment models in which schools can conduct tests online or on-site depending on learner safety requirements. uLearn's online proctoring tool is expected to allow the Richmond County School System to seamlessly switch between the two assessment modes. One of the value propositions of uLearn is providing an identical and fair assessment experience to test-taking candidates, regardless of whether tests are conducted online or offline.

Greater integration with all learning platforms and devices:

The Richmond County School System utilizes the renowned LMS platform Canvas to simplify the management of lectures and assessments for learners and educators. Through its LTI feature, uLearn’s online proctoring application is designed to integrate seamlessly with the platform to improve the ethical quotient of online or hybrid assessments conducted within the framework of Canvas. Remote students at the Richmond County School System will find it easy to use uLearn’s online tool as it is compatible with all types of computers or laptops — Windows, Mac, and others.

Jeenal Ganatra, Marketing Head, uLearn.io, commented on the new partnership, “We’re thrilled to be collaborating as a proctoring partner with the Richmond County School System. As always, our main target will be to optimize their online assessments and hybrid learning model via our intelligent and intuitive online proctoring tool”.