A Data Mining Approach for Detecting Collusion in Unproctored Online Exams

Due to the precautionary measures during the COVID-19 pandemic many universities offered unproctored take-home exams. We propose methods to detect potential collusion between students and apply our approach on event log data from take-home exams during the pandemic. We find groups of students with suspiciously similar exams. In addition, we compare our findings to a proctored comparison group. By this, we establish a rule of thumb for evaluating which cases are ``outstandingly similar'', i.e., suspicious cases