Local proctoring experiences/tips?

[jch]

I did local pen and paper proctoring again for my three free September 2023 TECEPs. No notable issues with the arrangements, besides TESU being a tad on the slow side mailing out the exam packets.
Two weeks after my first exam, though, I found a nasty surprise when I checked Moodle. My grade had posted, but it was less than half of what I expected to score. That exam was all multiple-choice questions, so I wasn't waiting on written components to be manually graded. I sent a grade appeal email to the testing office stating that I suspected the score to be erroneous and requesting an investigation of the result. The next morning, they manually rescored my exam and posted the correct result. Not sure what happened, perhaps something with wrong with the answer sheet scanning or programming.

[jch]

Incredibly, TESU messed up the scoring for all three TECEPs I took via pen and paper in October 2023. I completed the exams using the same proctoring arrangements, methods, pencils, etc I've used successfully in the past. This term, though, an incorrect and drastically low score initially showed up in Moodle for each of them. In each case, after a brief email to the testing office requesting manual verification, my score was immediately corrected to match my expected results. In one case, the testing office also failed to get the grade updated on my transcript after making the correction, requiring me to open another ticket. I am appalled that the university repeated this issue week after week and doesn't appear to have it resolved yet. If you take any exams via pen and paper proctoring, be sure to check your scores and appeal if they seem off.

[bjcheung77]

Ouch, that's rough, lucky (or not, I'm using ProctorU) so they're clunky at best but still seems usable for proctoring at home on a crappy older laptop...

[rachel83az]

Multiple choice exams? I'm guessing TESU fed your Scantron sheets in with the wrong courses selected. And/or the back end didn't account for the switch from three digit course numbers to four. There is a lot of residual nonsense from that changeover still.

[jch]

One of them was all multiple-choice, and the other two were upper level marketing exams with a combo of multiple-choice and essay questions. Still not sure exactly what happened. The mis-scan answer may make sense for the first exam. For the other two, the response from OTA hints that the grader made a mistake when adding the exam components and entering the final total score.

[bjcheung77]

Hmm, weird, the multiple-choice options usually have a 'set' answer and thus a 'set score', I don't know how you can even appeal the answers, the scores online are almost instant.  For the ones with essays, it'll take at least two weeks, these are the ones you can probably 'debate' and appeal your grading on.  I never get to see the real answers or how they marked the essays, so I don't even really know how I can appeal anything... It's great that jch was able to do an appeal, I would too if it didn't go accordingly.

[jch]

In all three of my cases, OTA responded to my appeals and fixed the issues in an hour or so. That's fast enough that they couldn't have really investigated the answers. From their replies, I got the impression that upon taking a look at things they immediately found issues with how the scores were tabulated and recorded.

[studyingfortests]

Many colleges and universities provide proctoring services even if you aren't enrolled there Here in CA, they charge for it ($25-35). Some libraries still do this for free. And if you just need a proctor, I think just about every Sylvan Learning Center will do proctoring for around $35. I think it was for up to 2 hours, then $20/hour after that or something.

Someone suggested Zoom-based proctoring. In my experience, most schools that allow outside proctors are going to require that the student and the proctor be physically in the same location, which rules out zoom-based proctoring.