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International Conference on Technology Enhanced Assessment

TEA 2018: Technology Enhanced Assessment pp 199–218Cite as

Getting to Grips with Exam Fraud: A Qualitative Study Towards Developing an Evidence Based Educational Data Forensics Protocol

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Part of the Communications in Computer and Information Science book series (CCIS,volume 1014)

Abstract

This design research was focused on developing standards covering the entire process of examination to limit the chances of security risks (e.g., the prevention of exam fraud as much as possible, and detection by means of data forensics), together these standards form the Educational Data Forensics Protocol. Two research questions guided this study. The first question was, which standards regarding preventing and detecting fraud in the process of examination need to be included into the EDF protocol? In addition, practitioners must be able to act on indications of exam fraud based on these standards. Therefore, a second research question was formulated, namely which conditions must be considered during development of the EDF protocol to support practitioners in detecting possible gaps in the security of their examination process?

The EDF protocol was developed and validated in five consecutive steps. This study analyses on the theoretical base of developing the EDF protocol (Step 1) and the considerations for developing a prototype (Step 2). The prototype was being validated (e.g., establishing correctness of the content) through seven semi-structured interviews with content experts in the field of either test security or data forensics (Step 3). Statements from these interviews were used to adjust the prototype into a final version of the EDF protocol (Step 4). Finally, to determine the practical value, the final version of the EDF protocol was used to flag gaps in the security of the exam process and determine possible security risks for one of eX:plain’ s exam programs (Step 5).

Keywords

  • Data forensics
  • Academic integrity
  • Test security
  • Exam fraud

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Xquiry (eX:plain), Disketteweg 6, 3821 AR, Amersfoort, The Netherlands

    Christiaan J. van Ommering & Sebastiaan de Klerk

  2. Department of Research Methodology, Measurement and Data Analysis, Faculty of Behavioral Sciences, University of Twente, P.O. 217, 7500 AE, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Bernard P. Veldkamp

Authors
  1. Christiaan J. van Ommering
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  2. Sebastiaan de Klerk
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  3. Bernard P. Veldkamp
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Christiaan J. van Ommering , Sebastiaan de Klerk or Bernard P. Veldkamp .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Silvester Draaijer

  2. Welten Instituut, Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, The Netherlands

    Desirée Joosten-ten Brinke

  3. Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

    Eric Ras

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van Ommering, C.J., de Klerk, S., Veldkamp, B.P. (2019). Getting to Grips with Exam Fraud: A Qualitative Study Towards Developing an Evidence Based Educational Data Forensics Protocol. In: Draaijer, S., Joosten-ten Brinke, D., Ras, E. (eds) Technology Enhanced Assessment. TEA 2018. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1014. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25264-9_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25264-9_13

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