What is Observer?

Observer is a program that students must download and install prior to a monitored exam.
The program acts as a digital exam proctor, monitoring the student’s computer during the exam to ensure that unauthorized aids are not used and that communication with others is not possible.
Once Observer is activated, it begins monitoring the student’s computer. Monitoring continues until 15 minutes after the exam ends or until the student manually closes the program, whichever comes first.
It is not possible to monitor the student’s computer without the student activating screen recording.

During an exam using Observer, the following will be recorded:

• The last time the following were registered from the student’s computer:
  • Last activity (i.e., connection between the student’s computer and Observer)
  • Recordings (screenshots) sent to the Observer server
• The last screen image from the student can be viewed during the exam by the invigilator via a monitoring interface.

The above is only accessible to invigilators present during the written exam.
When Observer is active, the following data is collected for each student:

• Screen recordings (screenshots) 4–6 times per minute
• Snapshots of the computer’s taskbar

Observer logs whether the program is active and if it is closed or restarted during the exam.

Monitoring begins when screen recording is started in Observer.
Monitoring ends when the student clicks “Exit Observer” after submitting their exam. If not manually stopped, recording ends automatically 15 minutes after the exam ends.

Data is stored for six months and then deleted.
If the student logs into Digital Exam and follows the link to the data display from the submission receipt, the data will have been deleted and no report will be shown.

Data is sent to a central server in AAU’s server environment, where it is stored securely and confidentially.
Additionally, a process list (list of running programs) and network configuration are sent to the server.

The student can view the data collected about them by logging into Digital Exam and navigating to the submission receipt for the relevant exam.
In the submission receipt, there will be a link to a webpage where the data can be viewed no later than 2 hours after the exam ends.
The student will be able to see:

• All screenshots taken by the program
• Logging of processes run on the computer
• When the program was active on the computer

The program is protected against malicious attacks. For example, it is not possible to access students’ computers directly from the internet.
This means no one can log into the machine and access the screen and/or files.
The program sends information to a specific server on the internet, which is protected by SSL.
Thus, it is not possible for another machine to trick the program into sending screenshots to an unauthorized recipient.