Proposed High-Level Solutions to Counter Online Examination Fraud Using Digital Forensic Readiness Techniques

摘要

In this current digital age, most of the tasks are conducted electronically. Some academic institutions have not been left behind as they have adopted the norm of presenting exams via online means to students. The present-day paradigm creates opportunities for students to use this as an opening to cheat or commit online examination fraud because of the absence of exam proctors. Having electronic evidence would be vital if there was a disciplinary hearing into examination fraud. In the case when an institution is not prepared before-hand for such an incident, it is likely that there won't be important electronic evidence that is admissible before the disciplinary committee. In this case, it could be damaging to the institution's reputation and how it handles its academic affairs. In order to prepare institutions for such an incident, there should be proactive measures (digital forensic readiness measures) that need to be in place. These digital forensic readiness techniques can be used interchangeably because most, if not all of them, capture different kinds of data. So the institution needs a proper plan on what data might be useful before any technique can be implemented. Various factors such as cost of implementation and difficulty of implementation of these digital forensic readiness methods make its implementation even more difficult. This paper aims to explore the various ways how students commit online examination fraud and later propose high level digital forensic readiness techniques that can be used to capture as much information as possible before-hand which can later be used when there is need for a digital forensic investigation or perhaps suspicion of examination malpractice. We later evaluate the proposed techniques based on difficulty of implementation, cost of implementation and efficiency of operation of each particular technique. As motivation, we choose six (6) techniques which are explained in detail to help the reader understand why and how they can be used to suit a given digital forensic readiness purpose.