Virtualization methods for securing online exam

The advancement of technology brings various changes to numerous fields, including education. Online exam usages are increasing, since it brings several benefits, including the possibility of automated grading. However, online exam also brings new possibilities for a cheating exam taker to access forbidden resources. Both manual and computer aided mechanisms to prevent cheating are needed. After conducting preliminary research on cheating in online exams and its detection and prevention, in this research, we present virtualization methods for securing online exams from cheating attempts in an exam client in real time. We analyzed and compared two virtualization methods, which are hardware level virtualization and operating system level virtualization, for implementing secure exam sandboxes. Based on our experiments, hardware level virtualization is the optimal method. The result of this research is a set of tools that can be used to enhance the existing proctoring methods used for securing online exam. The benefits of our proposed system are a better process isolation and low bandwidth usage.