What is SMOWL CM?
SMOWL CM is a computer monitoring tool that allows supervision of the user during the development of his activity, which allows it to capture any action that the student does while he is taking the exam.
How does it work?
SMOWL CM is automatically activated once the user accesses the page to be monitored and begins to collect evidence of the device's status and process it automatically according to the filters established by the institution.
Among its main features, we can highlight:
A detailed report: technical details of the tool, web browsing, applications, peripherals, periodic images, virtual machines, commands... Etc.
Program detection: the tool distinguishes between "running applications" (programs that are open in the background) and "application usage" (programs with which the user has interacted during the activity).
The user's navigation on their device: which pages they visit, which folders they open... Etc.
SMOWL CM is a non-blocking monitoring tool that does not restrict user actions. |
What does the SMOWL CM report show?
All the information collected by SMOWL CM can be accessed by evidence in a timeline view.
Evidence | Validated evidence, approved by the alarm configuration filter. |
System | SMOWL CM system evidence, such as a periodic screenshot. |
Alert | Operational issue detected by SMOWL CM and alerted to the user. |
Incident | Improper behaviour of the user during the activity. |
Evidence detected by SMOWL CM
Tool Status:
It indicates whether the user has correctly accessed the exam or whether he/she has not correctly granted the monitoring permissions.
The system checks the status of the tools (monitoring components) and, if any issues arise, updates the access control information to block or activate access to the exam. In the case of activities with access control:
Tool checked: The user has successfully checked the tool on the instructions page.
Tool not checked: The tool has not been launched on the instructions page.
Early Close: Occurs when a user closes the CM tool before the exam is finished. To be considered significant, this closure must happen more than one minute before the expected end time.
Early Close Allowed: If "Early Close" is allowed in the system configuration, and a user closes the tool early, it's logged correctly.
Early Close NOT Allowed: If "Early Close" is not allowed, and a user closes the tool early, it's flagged as an issue.
Normal Closure: If the user closes the tool after the exam is finished, it's logged correctly, regardless of the "Early Close" setting.
Virtual Machine:
If the user has used a virtual machine when accessing the activity, it will be reflected in this section.
Running apps:
It indicates which programmes were being executed during the examination.
Peripherals:
It indicates the number of peripherals connected to your device. From Smowltech, we recommend that the user carry out the activities with a single screen.
Periodic screenshots:
Collects periodic snapshots taken by SMOWL CM of all windows and programs that are running by the user. As well as snapshots of your desktop.
App Interaction:
Every time the user switches windows between different programmes, this will be recorded and a screenshot will be taken to save the evidence.
Web navigation:
The system will record the websites that the user visits during their activity. You will be able to view a screenshot of the website visited by the user.
Commands:
The system will detect each time the user uses any of the prohibited commands, such as "copy/paste" or "screenshot". The content and its origin will be displayed in the results report.
SMOWL CM validation of incidents
The reports provided by SMOWL show in red the actions considered as issues and in grey the actions that are not considered as issues.
For example, if the learner is allowed to use a certain programme or document during his activity, there is the possibility to validate only that specific element/document for the user in the course.
Massive validation allows you to validate an incident common to all users in an activity. You can access massive validation in the top menu of your report.
To be able to validate incidents, you can click on the image: