UK universities¡¯ continued use of remote online examinations without supervision poses a grave threat to the integrity of undergraduate assessment, argues a new study which urges institutions to abandon exam practices introduced during the pandemic.

The call follows an investigation by academic integrity experts Philip Newton and Michael Draper, both at Swansea University, which found that more than three-quarters of UK universities are still using online remote examinations almost four years after the last lockdown measures were lifted in July 2021.

Of the 119 universities who responded to their Freedom of Information requests, 93 (78 per cent) said they still used online exams, according to a paper published as an?.

Understanding and protecting academic integrity

Of these, 60 UK universities (74 per cent of those who answered this question) said they did not use any proctoring service while 23 (26 per cent) only used supervision or monitoring for some but not all of their examinations.

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Only nine institutions (10 per cent) said they used a remote invigilation system for all of their online exams while 61 institutions (68 per cent) said they proctored none of their online summative assessments, with an average of 246 examinations per university going unsupervised.

That ¡°widespread¡± lack of invigilation should raise concerns about the ¡°validity of [such] examinations as an assessment format and the quality assurance of degrees which include these assessments¡±, argues the paper.

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The rise of ChatGPT and other chatbots since the pandemic-era introduction of such measures made this issue even more pressing, it adds. Only 60 institutions which ran unsupervised online invigilation provided a policy or guidance regarding their security or integrity, of which only 28 per cent referred explicitly to generative AI.

This lack of proctoring also placed students in the ¡°paradoxical position of being required to work under ¡®examination conditions¡¯ remotely, but with no attempt by the university to administer them¡±.

Newton told Times Higher Education that many university policies ¡°put their students in a no-win situation by using policies that tell students ¡®you must not cheat¡¯ but then not enforcing the policy¡±.

Noting that ¡°cheating is widespread in this type of assessment¡±, Newton added that ¡°students are forced to choose ¨C do they cheat, or risk getting lower marks than peers who did cheat, with consequences for employability¡±.

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¡°This situation is created by universities but is lose-lose for students. It feels to me like actively unethical behaviour by universities and examiners,¡± he added.

Indeed, the study also suggests its results could understate the lack of invigilation as many universities declined to provide information by claiming exams were run at a departmental level, and therefore data could not be collated.

Asked if they intended on phasing out online exams, 70 per cent of institutions that replied said they had no plans to reduce their use, 19 per cent intended to scale back their use and only 3 per cent (two institutions) planned to eliminate their use completely.

Urging an end to an ¡°assessment format which appears to lack basic validity, and for which event peripheral benefits are questionable¡±, the study called for a return to ¡°authentic assessment¡± which might include practical examinations or oral assessments, and thus may be more resilient to cheating.

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¡°Banned or not, the definitions of (un)acceptable academic practices used by quality assurance agencies will almost certainly need to be quickly redefined, particularly since most universities indicated that they plan to continue using [these] examinations,¡± the study concludes.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com