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        A Dynamic Profile Questions Approach to Mitigate Impersonation in Online Examinations

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        Ullah_et_al_online_examinations_published_version.pdf (PDF, 915Kb)
        Author
        Ullah, Abrar
        Xiao, Hannan
        Barker, Trevor
        Attention
        2299/20450
        Abstract
        Online examinations are an integral component of many online learning environments, which face many security challenges. Collusion is seen as a major security threat to such examinations, when a student invites a third party to impersonate or abet in a test. This work aims to strengthen the authentication of students via the use of dynamic profile questions. The study reported in this paper involved 31 online participants from five countries over a five-week period. The results of usability and security analysis are reported. The dynamic profile questions were more usable than both the text-based and image-based questions (p < 0.01). An impersonation abuse scenario was simulated using email and mobile phone. The impersonation attack via email was not successful, however, students were able to share answers to dynamic profile questions with a third party impersonator in real time, which resulted in 93% correct answers. The sharing of information via phone took place in real time during an online test and the response time of an impersonator was significantly different (p < 0.01) than a student. The study also revealed that a response time factor may be implemented to identify and report impersonation attacks.
        Publication date
        2018-05-31
        Published in
        Journal of Grid Computing
        Published version
        https://doi.org/10.1007/s10723-018-9442-6
        Other links
        http://hdl.handle.net/2299/20450
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