Does Blackboard Track Tabs, Activity, Location or Plagiarism?
With the increase in online exams especially on the Blackboard platform, the question that is on every student’s mind is whether Blackboard tracks tabs, activity, location, or plagiarism.
Most students want to find out whether their attempts to cheat during online exams can be detected. This article offers all the answers regarding whether Blackboard can track tabs, activity, copied work, or location.
Does Blackboard Track Tabs?
Blackboard does not track tabs that a student opens in a browser during an online exam. It can only detect if there is no activity going on the test page.
Therefore, professors can know that you have left the page but will have no evidence of whether you are cheating or not. this factor is unreliable but it can prove to be important if combined with other factors.
There is no in-built technology on Blackboard that prevents students from opening other tabs.
Blackboard also offers time stamps of when the students started the test, when they completed it, and the number of attempts.
These features cannot make Blackboard prevent students from cheating in online exams. This is why Blackboard uses other programs to help proctor exams and aid in the prevention of cheating.
How does blackboard track tabs?
Blackboard tracks tabs using the Respondus Monitor and the Lockdown Browser. These are the tools it uses to detect cheating or serve as a deterrent to similar exam malpractices. Below are the details of both tools
1. Respondus Monitor
The Respondus monitor is a proctoring solution that is fully automated for use by Blackboard. This application uses a webcam to record the environment where the student is doing the exam at.
The Respondus monitor also records the screen activity of the student. All proctoring results and anything that is flagged are available to the instructor after the test for further review.
Through screen recording, instructors have a clear picture of all the activities that the student performed during the exam. This includes whether the student opened a new tab and exited the one containing the test. To review the recordings and detect any exam malpractice the instructor should:
- Log into the Blackboard course and go to the control panel, click on “tools” and select the Respondus monitor.
- Locate the class that you want to view recordings of and select “Class results” after clicking the button on the left of the test name.
- To view the recordings, click the addition sign + on the student’s name. The full video can be played by pressing the play button and scrolling to any part of the video by dragging the blue triangle button. Any portion of the video that Respondus finds an error on will be flagged.
2. Lockdown Browser
Instead of tracking tabs, the lockdown browser ensures that students will not be able to access another page once they are logged into the exam.
This browser restricts a certain number of things on the computer making it impossible for students to cheat by searching for answers using different applications or web pages.
The lockdown browser opens up full screen when being used. It also does not provide any menu options for students to utilize.
Unlike other browsers, it does not provide a field to enter URLs for students to utilize. Some of the many activities that the lockdown browser restricts include:
- Keyboard shortcuts and function keys
- Minimizing or maximizing windows
- Opening new tabs
- Copy-pasting
- Right-clicking
- Running other applications system tray or dock
- Second screen
- Start button
What else does blackboard detect?
Blackboard also detects the following:
1. IP addresses
Every device is assigned an IP address on a network. They are usually unique to identify different devices on a network. This is the only way of differentiating all devices that have internet connection accessing a similar network.
Blackboard can identify the IP addresses of computers and devices that are accessing any component of their system. This platform then provides a range of filters that can be modified to restrict the test in some particular areas.
Therefore, only students from some particular areas that the institution allows can access the test. All third parties from areas that are not on the examination horizon cannot access the tests available on Blackboard.
This means that students can’t use their friends from different areas to help them cheat in online exams.
2. Live exam malpractices
Blackboard leverages live proctoring using systems like google meet and zoom to monitor students during live online tests. Students do not receive any alerts in case of abnormal activities.
Instructors can only detect them after viewing them during the test or after reviewing the whole video recording after the test.
The live proctoring feature uses the webcam to lock down the testing environment where the instructor can fully monitor what is going on.
Therefore, this feature is recommended for small classes that can be easily monitored to detect any abnormal behavior during the exam.
3. Audio
Through the Respondus monitor, Blackboard can detect any audio in the background of a student exam environment. The audio is recorded for future reference.
As a result, the student is deterred from having people helping them with the exam in the background. The only audio allowed is that of the student in case of any need for clarification during the exam. Blackboard stops accessing your microphone only when the test is over or if the application is closed.
Does Blackboard Track the Following?
1. Browser activity
Blackboard does not track browser activity on its own. It uses the Respondus monitor that can record the screen of the device being used by the student during the online test.
As a result, there is a video of everything that a student accesses on the web. However, exam abnormalities that are based on browser activity are very rare to find because Blackboard uses a Lockdown browser that ensures students cannot in any way get out of the exam page without submitting the test.
2. Plagiarism
Blackboard includes a digital Program known as SafeAssign that is used to detect plagiarism. This program is usually merged with the assignment tool on Blackboard making SafeAssign assignments possible on Blackboard.
SafeAssign works by letting instructors check all the assignments that the students have submitted on Blackboard through comparison with its global database. T
his database contains books, articles, journals, and all other previously submitted assignments making it hard for students to submit duplicated work.
Through SafeAssign instructors have an essay way of identifying the level of originality on any assignment submitted.
This is through a plagiarism percentage score that represents the amount of similar work detected on the submitted work.
However, the instructor has to check the content flagged as plagiarised because even proper referenced and cited work is flagged by SafeAssign.
SafeAssign does not check for plagiarism on multiple-choice questions. These questions are very common in online exams and students can easily cheat during these tests because plagiarism is never checked by schools when multiple choice questions are involved.
3. Location
Blackboard detects location through IP address. Through the use of IP addresses the online exam is made available to students living in a particular area and restricted to students or people in other areas.
This makes it hard for people from restricted areas to help students cheat during exams.
Many schools, therefore, have adopted the use of IP addresses to restrict the location from which students are allowed to have the online exam.
Also, third parties that might be used by the students to do the exams on their behalf are prevented and the integrity of the examination is maintained.
