Why online degree exams are different
A campus exam has a hall, an invigilator and a seat plan, and an online degree exam has none of them. Your learners may be working professionals in different cities, sitting on home laptops, shared family computers or phones, over connections that change by the hour. Many have never met their faculty in person.
That changes what the exam has to prove. You need to know that the enrolled learner is the one sitting the paper, that the paper was taken under the conditions you set, and that a person looked at any concern before it affected a result. Your process also has to be fair to a learner whose camera fails or whose connection drops, because at this scale it happens at every sitting.
Distance learning exams also come in more shapes. Programs mix continuous assessment, assignments, quizzes and term-end exams, and a single proctoring setting for all of them will either over-monitor the weekly quiz or under-protect the term-end paper.
What UGC guidance means for your exam process
In India, online and ODL programs are governed by the UGC regulations for open and distance learning programs and online programs, which have been amended over time. Those regulations, along with the UGC guidelines on online examination that apply to your programs, set the rules for how and where term-end exams are held. Read the current text from the UGC and your own statutory bodies before you design your exam process. This page is not legal advice, and requirements change.
An exam platform can give you evidence for whatever process your regulations and academic council approve. With Proctorly, that evidence includes:
- an identity record for each sitting, with face checks at the start and during the exam
- a recording and event timeline at the assurance level you chose
- a reviewer’s decision, with a reason, on every flag at the Every flag reviewed level
- a tamper-evident audit trail of every view, decision and change
- an evidence pack for each case, ready for an appeal, an audit or an inspection
If your institution has to hold some exams in centers, the Proctorly Examination module lets you run the same exam in a center and online, with one seat plan and one set of results.
The setup we recommend
We recommend Recorded or Every flag reviewed, depending on the stakes of each exam, with AcademicOS if you also want course building and learner support. Because you set the level for each exam, one program can use both.
Low-stakes and continuous assessment
Use the Recorded level for weekly quizzes, practice tests and internal assessments. Proctorly runs an identity check, records the session and raises automated flags. Your own staff then review cases in the reviewer console, which opens each case at the flagged moment with webcam, screen and events on one timeline.
Record-only sittings capture practice exams without raising any flags, so learners get used to the exam screen before it counts.
Term-end exams
For term-end exams and others that decide progression or a degree, use Every flag reviewed. A trained Proctorly reviewer looks at every automated flag and records a decision before it reaches you, so your exam office only receives reviewed cases. 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.
Proctorly detects known generative-AI tools from a maintained list, second devices in view, remote-access tools, overlays, virtual machines and attempts to leave the exam window. Each of these is a signal for a person to review, not a finding. Our online proctoring overview explains how detection works, and human review proctoring explains how reviewers decide.
Need more reviewers than your exam office has? Our team can run the review for you, 24×7 during exams, as Proctoring as a Service.
What learners need at home
Online degree proctored exams shouldn’t need a specialist setup. Learners need:
- a laptop, desktop, tablet or phone with a camera and microphone
- Chrome, Safari, Edge or Ulaa
- an internet connection of at least 512 Kbps download and 128 Kbps upload
For exams that need deeper checks, you can ask learners to install the small Proctorly desktop app on a Windows computer, and the exam link tells them so.
Learners are told what is captured before the exam starts. Nothing is monitored in secret, and we do not infer emotion, personality or intent from a face or a voice. You can send learners our candidate guide, what is proctored exam, so they know what to expect on the day, and they can run a public system check before exam day without logging in.
When the connection drops
At distance learning scale, some learners will lose their connection or camera during a sitting. That is a technical problem, and your review process should treat it as one rather than as misconduct.
Today, an interruption is recorded as a technical gap, and learners can contact support from the help link on their exam screen, 24×7 during exams. Unusual audio and movement are raised only as signals for review in context, because household noise, reading aloud, assistive tools and disability-related movement are not misconduct.
The following are planned and not available yet:
- resuming after a dropped connection, with answers kept
- a separate evidence category that keeps technical failures out of the integrity score
- accommodations recorded for each learner
Identity for learners you never meet
In an online program, the person who enrolled has to be the person who sits the exam. Proctorly matches the learner’s face at the start and throughout the exam, and rejects photo or video replays. You can ask for a government or institutional photo ID before the exam and add an active liveness challenge for term-end sittings.
A failed check is a signal, not a verdict, and it goes to a person, never to an automatic fail. If some of your learners can’t use face verification, talk to us and we will plan the exam with you.
If your courses run in Moodle
Many distance education programs already run in 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 your Moodle course, in any browser, with sign-in and exam launch through Moodle’s own login. Your course and quiz stay where they are, and Proctorly adds identity checks, monitoring and review. See moodle proctoring for details.
You can also run the exam inside Proctorly itself, with no LMS at all.
Courses and exams on one academic record
If you are launching or growing online programs, AcademicOS works alongside Proctorly. Studio drafts modules, lessons and question banks from your syllabus, mapped to course outcomes, and faculty approve everything before it is published. AskOS answers learner questions about courses, deadlines and policies from your own handbooks, and passes requests that need a person to the right member of staff. See our course creation tools with an AI teaching assistant.
Once a course is ready for assessment, the Proctorly Examination module takes over. The same outcomes flow into the question bank, the exam is proctored, and results come back to the same record. If your online programs also admit learners through a screening test, you can run an online entrance exam on the same platform.
Frequently asked questions
Is Proctorly approved by the UGC for online degree exams?
The UGC regulates programs and institutions, and we are not aware of it approving individual proctoring vendors. Your institution decides its exam process within the current UGC regulations and its own statutes. Proctorly gives you the evidence for that process: identity checks throughout the session, a reviewed decision on every flag, a tamper-evident audit trail and an evidence pack for each case. Check the current regulations before you design your process.
Can learners take distance learning exams on a phone?
Yes. The exam opens in a locked browser session on a laptop, desktop, tablet or mobile phone, in Chrome, Safari, Edge or Ulaa, with at least 512 Kbps download and 128 Kbps upload. For exams that need deeper device checks, you can require the optional Windows desktop app, and the exam link tells learners in advance.
What if a learner’s internet drops mid-exam?
The interruption is recorded as a technical gap, not as misconduct, and the learner can reach support 24×7 during exams from the help link on screen. Resuming after a dropped connection with answers kept is planned, as is a separate evidence category that keeps technical failures out of the integrity score.
Which assurance level should we use for ODL exams?
Match the level to the stakes. Recorded suits quizzes and continuous assessment, with your own staff reviewing cases. Every flag reviewed suits term-end exams, where a Proctorly reviewer decides on every flag before it reaches you. You set the level for each exam, so one program can use both, and record-only sittings work well for practice tests.
Do we have to move our courses out of Moodle?
No. 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. If you prefer, the exam can run inside Proctorly with no LMS at all.