Online exam software that runs the exam, the evidence and the record in one place

What online exam software has to do

An online examination is more than a quiz on a web page. Once the result counts toward a grade, a rank or a license, your online exam software is doing three jobs at the same time.

1. Deliver the paper. The right questions reach the right candidate in the right order, with the timing and navigation rules your exam needs.
2. Protect the sitting. It checks who is taking the exam, keeps the session locked and watches for the ways candidates get outside help today.
3. Keep a record. When a result is disputed, an appeal panel will ask what happened, what was seen and who decided, and the software has to have the answer.

Many institutions split these jobs across separate tools: a quiz builder, a proctoring add-on and a spreadsheet of incidents. Evidence tends to go missing at each handover. Proctorly runs all three on one platform. Candidates sit the exam inside Proctorly, so the attempt, the answers and the evidence stay together, and you don’t need an ERP, LMS or campus system to run an exam.

If you’re weighing an online exam platform against a broader online assessment platform, the difference is scope. This page is about the exam engine, meaning how papers are built and delivered. The platform page covers the whole product, optional modules included.

How an exam runs on Proctorly

There are seven steps from paper to decision. If the format is new to you, our guide on how do online exams work walks through each stage from the candidate’s side.

1. Build. Write the paper or pull it from your item pools or question bank, then set the question types and marks.
2. Set the rules. Choose sections, section timers, navigation, instructions and, where you want it, adaptive testing.
3. Schedule. Fix the sitting, or let candidates book their own slot from the times your proctoring capacity allows.
4. Verify. Proctorly checks the candidate’s face at the start and through the session. Photo ID capture is set exam by exam.
5. Sit. The exam opens in a locked browser session with randomized questions, and Proctorly watches for known threats.
6. Review. The AI raises flags with clips and snapshots attached, and a trained reviewer checks every flag and records a decision with a reason.
7. Decide. Your institution sees each reviewed case with its evidence and makes the call. You can export the record for an appeal or an audit.

Build the paper

Question types

Proctorly supports the question types most university and certification papers need:

• Single choice and multiple choice
• True or false
• Numeric, with a tolerance you set
• Short answer
• Essay
• Fill in the blank
• Matching
• Ordering
• Hotspot
• File upload

There’s a built-in maths editor, so candidates and setters can write equations without workarounds.

Where questions come from

• Item pools in the paper. Group questions into pools so each candidate draws a different set.
• Your question bank. The question bank is available now. With the Proctorly Examination module, papers come from an outcome-mapped online question bank with a sealed paper vault and timed release, so nobody sees the paper before the sitting.

Set the rules for each exam

Each paper follows the rules you set for its exam.

• Section timers. Give each section its own time limit, or use one timer for the whole paper.
• Locked or free navigation. Candidates can move around freely, or you can lock a section once they leave it.
• Per-section instructions. Show candidates the right instructions at the right point, for example “calculators not permitted in Section B”.
• Adaptive testing. Where your assessment design calls for it, serve questions that respond to the candidate’s earlier answers.

Randomized delivery

When candidates sit at the same time, neighbors, roommates and group chats become a risk. Proctorly shuffles the questions and the answer options, drawing from item pools, so two candidates sitting side by side don’t see the same paper in the same order.

Randomization works best with a deep pool. A good rule of thumb is to write more items than each candidate will see, at matched difficulty, so the papers stay fair while still being different.

Handwritten working

Engineering, mathematics and science papers often need working that is hard to type. Candidates can photograph their rough work on a phone, and the image is attached to the question for the marker. The marker sees the method along with the answer, and there’s no separate upload step after the exam.

Scheduling and self-booking

Large cohorts rarely fit into one sitting. With self-booking, candidates pick their own slot from the times your proctoring capacity allows. Your exam office sets the windows, and the platform keeps each slot within the number of candidates it can watch properly.

Devices, browsers and remote exams

Remote exams only work if candidates can use the devices they already own, and Proctorly supports bring-your-own-device (BYOD) exams.

• Devices: laptop, desktop, tablet or mobile phone, with a camera and microphone.
• Browsers: Chrome, Safari, Edge or Ulaa.
• Connection: at least 512 Kbps download and 128 Kbps upload.

Most exams need no separate app. Some higher-stakes exams also ask candidates to install the small Proctorly desktop app on a Windows computer, and the exam link tells them in advance.

A locked session, with monitoring for known threats

The exam opens in a locked browser session. For background on how locked browsers work in general, and what they do and don’t capture, read what is a lockdown browser.

Around the locked session, Proctorly watches for the threats candidates use today:

• Generative-AI tools and chatbots, from a maintained list
• Second devices in view
• Remote-access and screen-sharing tools
• Screen recording, extra monitors, virtual machines and browser extensions
• Known overlay apps and AI browsers
• Tab and window events
• Audio and behavior signals, raised for a person to review in context

On Windows, an optional desktop agent adds checks on running apps, overlays, displays, USB and Bluetooth devices, VPNs, browser windows and tabs. It records that an app is open but never reads the candidate’s documents.

Before anything gets flagged, on-screen nudges remind candidates of the rules, such as staying in view, and every nudge is logged.

Each of these is a signal for review, not proof. You’ll find the full detection picture on our online proctoring page.

Choose the level of assurance per exam

The same platform can run a weekly quiz and a licensing exam without becoming two products. You set the level for each exam, and the platform, the evidence and the decision process stay the same.

“Every flag reviewed” means every flag. It doesn’t mean every minute of every recording.

Identity, review and evidence

Identity through the session. Face verification runs at the start and continuously during the exam, and photo and video replays are rejected. For higher-stakes exams you can add photo ID capture and an active liveness challenge. A failed check goes to a person, never to an automatic fail. See online exam identity verification.

People review; your institution decides. No automated flag fails a candidate or imposes a sanction. At the Every flag reviewed level, trained Proctorly reviewers work 24×7 during exams, in English, with one reviewer for every 40 candidates. They review 95 of every 100 flags within 5 minutes, and the rest are still reviewed, just later. Learn how human review proctoring works.

A record that survives an appeal. Each case keeps the clips, the timeline, the reviewer’s reasoning and a tamper-evident audit trail, and you can export it as one evidence pack for an appeal or an audit.

An exam-day control room. Your exam office can watch every online sitting live and see who has started, who has been flagged and who needs help.

Low-stakes, open-book and practice sittings

Some exams don’t need flags at all. For practice tests and low-stakes quizzes, you can run a record-only sitting, where the session is recorded but no flags are raised. That suits formative checks and some open-book formats, where you want a record rather than a gate. Our guide to the open book exam explains how to design one that still tests understanding.

Works on its own, connects when you need it

You don’t need an LMS or ERP to run an exam on Proctorly. When you do want a connection:

• Moodle. Moodle monitoring with OAuth and LTI 1.3 is live and supports Canvas, Blackboard, and other learning platforms. Proctorly can monitor an exam that stays inside Moodle, in any browser, with sign-in and exam launch through Moodle’s own login. See Moodle proctoring.
• Other LMS connections. LTI 1.3 Advantage for Moodle (launch, roster and grade return) is live, and Canvas, Blackboard, D2L Brightspace and other learning platforms connect through LTI 1.3 today.
• Single sign-on with Microsoft accounts, an API for in-house systems and ERP or student information system links are planned. Ask us for the current status before you plan around them.

Data location. Data is hosted in the client’s geographic location by default, and institutions can keep data in their own S3 bucket instead.

The whole exam cycle, if you want it. Delivery covers the sitting itself. Timetables, registration, hall tickets, halls, on-screen marking, results and transcripts belong to the Proctorly Examination module (formerly ExaminationOS), our exam management system. It can run the same exam in a center and online with one seat plan and one set of results. Proctoring works on its own without it.

Computer-based tests at scale. If your exam board calls the format a CBT, it runs on the same delivery engine. Our CBT exam guide explains the format and what to look for in online CBT exam software in India and elsewhere.

Features of an online examination system: a buyer's checklist

Whichever exam software ends up on your shortlist, put these ten questions to each vendor. The answers show you which products are quiz tools and which are secure online exam software.

1. Where does the exam run? Inside the vendor’s platform, inside your LMS, or split between the two? A split leaves gaps in the record.
2. Which question types are supported, including numeric tolerance, file upload and a maths editor?
3. Can each candidate get a different paper through item pools and shuffled options?
4. What devices and browsers are supported, and which haven’t been tested?
5. What is the minimum connection, and what happens if it drops?
6. How is identity checked: once at the start, or through the whole session?
7. What does monitoring look for, and what does the vendor admit it can’t see?
8. Who reviews flags, how quickly, and can an automated flag ever become a sanction on its own?
9. What does an appeal panel receive? Ask to see a sample evidence pack.
10. Where is the data stored, and who sets the retention period?

Ask for a live walkthrough using one of your own papers. A good online exam software demo shows the same sitting from three angles: the candidate’s, the reviewer’s and the exam office’s.

Interruptions, accommodations and setup checks

These delivery features are planned and not available yet:

• Resume after a dropped connection, with the candidate’s answers kept
• Accommodations recorded per candidate

Candidates can already test their setup without logging in, using the public system check.

Where our view ends

No online examination system sees everything, and we’d rather tell you where the edges are than have you find them on exam day.

• A camera and a screen recording can’t see every way of getting help. We detect a published set of known threats and tell you where our view ends.
• Proctorly doesn’t proctor candidates inside an exam hall. Online candidates are proctored on the Proctorly core.
• Some certification boards still require in-person sittings for certain exams. If remote delivery isn’t the right fit, we’ll tell you.

Explore secure online exam delivery

• Online assessment platform: the whole Proctorly platform, with its core and its two optional modules.
• How do online exams work: each stage of an online exam, for candidates and for exam offices.
• What is a lockdown browser: how secure exam browsers work and what they record.
• CBT exam: what a computer-based test is and how it’s delivered.
• Open book exam: formats, question design and integrity for open-book papers.

Frequently asked questions