Before You Begin
SMOWL is a proctoring tool that collects evidence for your institution to evaluate. SMOWL never decides whether a user passes or fails an activity.
SMOWL is fully integrated into the platform; therefore, the results report will be available at most 24 hours after the last student has finished their activity.
If you need to customize reports or communicate with our web services, you can use our API. You will find more information in the following article.
SMOWL will provide all evidence for a course or activity by selecting the modality (quiz, test, SCORM, etc.) and the specific ID of the course or activity. Once the activity is selected, you will have access to the monitoring results report.
Menu and Functionalities
At the top of the results panel, you will find the following features:
Search Bar: Allows you to search by username or User ID.
Review Status: Allows you to filter reports based on their review status.
Download CSV: Automatically downloads a summary of the monitoring report for this activity.
Results Table
In the results window, you will find a summary of the monitoring. Depending on your activity settings, different monitoring tools will be available:
Frontal camera: Images taken during the activity through the user's webcam. We check if it is the correct user, if there are elements not allowed, etc. In this article you will find more information. | |
Computer monitoring: Evidence provided by SMOWL CM on computer navigation, open applications, commands... Etc. In this article you will find more information. | |
Browser blocking: Evidence provided by SMOWL LOCK about the behavior of users in their browser. Evidence of automatic locking by the extension, alerts displayed to users, etc. In this article you will find more information. | |
External camera: Images taken during the activity through the user's phone or tablet. In this article you will find more information. | |
Audio capture: Evidence provided when the users' microphone detects noise above our threshold and captures the audio for teacher review. In this article you will find more information. |
Additionally, in the results table you will find:
The date of the last evidence captured for a user.
Review comments to include a message regarding a user's report.
Review status validation, allowing you to choose whether a user has been reviewed favorably or not.
Individual Result View
When selecting a user to review, the monitoring report for that specific user will open in full screen.
This view allows for linear tracking of everything the user did throughout the activity.
In this list, you will find three types of events:
Informational Events: These do not include graphic evidence and indicate generally technical behavior (e.g., "Computer monitoring started").
Evidences: Includes graphic evidence in the report and indicates behavior that is not considered an infraction.
Incidents: Any evidence or informational event that is considered an infraction during the activity.
While navigating, you can select the different types of events to review the user's monitoring data.
Additionally, by selecting an evidence file, you can expand it to fullscreen and navigate through the activity to view all collected evidence.
The expanded view includes a zoom tool to enlarge important details that may require a closer look.
In the upper right corner, you will find the following tools:
User Registration: Access the user's SMOWL registration file.
Activity Filter: A tool to filter through activity logs.
Downloadable Report: A file containing detailed information on everything that occurred during the activity monitoring.
Standalone readmission button
From now on, if a student is expelled, the block is permanent in the system. Autonomous Readmission Button: To help your institution maintain control, the administrator can authorize a "New Attempt" and readmit the expelled user immediately if necessary.
This reactivation option is only available from the new results panel. Gaining autonomy to manage these cases.
What is 'Review Priority' and what is it used for?
Our 'Review Priority' system acts as an intelligent assistant that automatically organizes and prioritizes all those sessions for you. Its goal is simple: to save time and direct your attention to what truly matters.
Instead of reviewing at random, the system labels each session with a priority level: High, Medium, or Low. This allows reviewers to focus first on the sessions with the most significant irregularities, ensuring more efficient and effective supervision.
How does it work?
To understand how the system assigns a label, think of it this way: each type of incident (someone talking, mobile phone use, etc.) has a "score" based on its severity.
HIGH Criticality: The "Red Flag" 🚩
A session is marked as HIGH as soon as a single incident considered "Severe" is detected. There are no calculations or additions; if something serious happens, the session is prioritized instantly.
MEDIUM Criticality: The "Accumulation of Clues" 🤔
This level appears when there is no "red flag," but several minor incidents accumulate. Think of it like a glass filling up: each mild or moderate incident adds a little water. If the glass fills up and overflows, the session is marked as MEDIUM.
LOW Criticality: "All in Order" ✅
These are sessions where no "red flag" was raised and the "glass" of minor incidents did not fill up. They indicate that the user's behavior remained within expectations.
Which incidents fall into each level?
To make it even easier for you to interpret the tags, here are some examples of the incidents the system takes into account according to their severity:
Severe incidents "trigger HIGH": using a mobile phone during the test, user absence, identity fraud, multiple people in front of the camera, denying camera or microphone access, exiting full screen, being expelled from the session, or using unauthorized programs, among others.
Moderate incidents "add toward MEDIUM": blocked or undetected camera or microphone, unauthorized web browsing, shared IP address with another user, or brief absence from the camera, among others.
Minor incidents "also add up, though with less weight": partially covered camera, poor lighting or user positioning, or using unauthorized keyboard shortcuts, among others.
The higher the accumulation of moderate or minor incidents, the closer a session will be to moving from LOW to MEDIUM. In this way, the system helps you focus your review time where it truly adds value.