Abstract:

The pandemic crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus has complicated the way students are taught and tested in schools nowadays. Students take tests and exams from the home environment, where they have access to many unauthorized external sources in case of insufficient control. Our article provides a survey of available tools for effective supervision of student activity that are available to teachers and instructors during online education. The article offers recommendations and important practical experience with the open-source tool Safe Exam Browser (SEB). Our description of the operation of this tool, its use in the Learning Management System (LMS) Moodle and the implementation of the solution at the Faculty of Management and Informatics at the University of Žilina will be beneficial for every university using the LMS. The article also deals with tools that are significantly helpful in increasing interactivity with students during online teaching, such as OBS Studio, MS Teams and Veyon. In the article, we also present an effective way of verifying students' practical skills when working on equipment in a specialized network laboratory, in the form of remote access, but in order to achieve reliable and unbiased results of students during online testing.

Since during online teaching and testing, the issue of access to sensitive information in terms of video and voice recording, as well as access to information on students' private facilities is very topical, in our research we conducted two surveys addressed to students and teachers, which we evaluate in the article. We also find opinions on the benefits of these tools in the surveys.

The article focuses on the opinion of students of the Faculty of Management and Informatics at the University of Žilina, attending the subjects Principles of Information and Communication Networks, or Computer Networks 1 and 2, who used the SEB browser for continuous tests and final examinations, and another combination of other useful tools. The respondents were mostly first- and second-year students, with a total of 255 students.

The questionnaire consisted of 13 sections, with the shortest section having 3 questions and the longest section having 10 questions. In the individual sections, we found out what students think about testing in the form of online tests during distance learning, we also addressed questions focused on students' dishonest behavior, as well as questions about what students perceive as an invasion of privacy and what they still consider acceptable. In the following sections, we addressed the issue of installing and using SEB and students' views on using this tool. We also found out and evaluated students' views on the use of the webcam during online tests, problems with the installation and use of OBS Studio during online exercises, and students' views on the use of this tool.

We also consider obtaining answers from teachers to forms of testing during online teaching to be a significant benefit. These are not only technological solutions and implementation problems, but also comments on issues such as whether the use of tools to monitor student activity during online teaching or testing is perceived by teachers as disrupting the teacher's relationship with students. Thus, the article can bring new perspectives and information for everyone who is interested in the topic of distance education, and especially the topic of effective testing during distance learning.

Keywords:

Distance learning, online testing, online teaching, Safe Exam Browser, Veyon, OBS Studio, MS Teams, LMS Moodle, proctoring, supervision.