Distance Learning

Mississippi State Virtual CC Hands off Proctoring Work

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 10/22/15

Mississippi Virtual Community College has gone public with its use of an automated proctoring system. The virtual community college provides a hub for all 15 of the state's community colleges to share their online resources, including faculty, courses, support and technology. As a requirement for taking a course through the program, students must agree to sit through one proctored exam at a minimum. The college has been using SmarterProctoring from SmarterServices to handle the heavy lifting of those exams. So far, according to the vendor, more than 161,000 exams have been taken; that's expected to reach 250,000 by year's end.

The company provides proctor identification, proctor approval, exam scheduling, payment handling for proctor fees and exam submission, all of which the student accesses through his or her course, no matter which college the class derives from within the community college system. The service works for every testing scenario instructors use: instructor as proctor, school testing centers, third-party testing centers, approved human proctors and virtual proctoring.

"Our e-learning program continues to grow, and our schools felt overwhelmed with all the tasks associated with scheduling, approving proctors and helping students navigate the testing process," said Audra Kimble, assistant executive director of e-learning & instructional technology at the college. "SmarterProctoring alleviated this administrative headache by centralizing all these systems and functions. And it's flexible — we were able to customize standards to give all 15 schools autonomy."