As long as education has been in this world, there has also been cheating. There is always someone, somewhere who tries their hardest to find a less-than-honest way to get out of having to do the work that others spend a lot of time studying and preparing for.
Online education is really no different; the student still tries to outsmart the teacher, or program, in this case. Fortunately, we have put several measures in place to keep people from cheating when taking our online courses.
1. Our courses will not allow the viewer to skip ahead through the video.
What it means: If a particular video is 45 minutes long, you have to watch it in its entirety before it will unlock the assessment questions at the end. If you skip ahead, those questions will not come up and you will not be allowed to go past that point in the course.
2. Questions can be randomized to avoid having the same questions in a sequential order.
What it means: If a public safety entity has multiple people taking the same course, but they want different questions or the questions randomized to avoid cheating, they can set it up to do so – that’s one of the many personalized features Virtual Academy offers.
3. The viewer cannot be logged in to multiple browsers or multiple sessions at one time – our system will automatically kick you out.
What it means: If someone wants to try to tackle two courses at one time, our system won’t allow it and will kick the viewer out.
Another thing to note is that the Virtual Academy platform is easy to customize for each specific public safety entity. For instance, if a Training Officer wants to set a maximum three-test retake, he/she can do that! This allows the officer taking the training to only be able to take and fail the test three times at a maximum before he/she is locked out and the Training Officer is notified. The person in charge of training has the control to set the limit on the amount of test retakes, so that could as many times as he/she deems appropriate.
We consider our viewers as being professionals first, who also happen to be learners. We also realize that your time is extremely valuable and not always easily available. That’s why we try to make our training as easily digestible and interactive as possible. We want you to learn the most from it and be able to apply it to saving lives, regardless of which area of public safety you work in.
If you’re a current partner and would like to take advantage of any of these features, please call our Tech Support Team at 855.227.9119 to get this set up today!