One anti-cheating strategy is to require students to arrange for a proctor at a local community college, university or library. The proctor is typically located by the student and approved by the instructor. The proctor checks photoID and monitors the student while they take the exam. Exams are submitted online, or in some cases, printed and faxed by the proctor to the instructor. This can be inconvenient for distant students to arrange and for the instructor to coordinate.

If most or all online students are local, proctored exams can be arranged at a particular time and location. For a large group of students, it is easier to administer a pencil and paper proctored exam than to arrange for a computer laboratory to accomodate all the students.

MSU Example
The vuDAT online remedial math course, jointly offered by MSU and San Francisco State University, used five online exams and two proctored in-person exams. The math faculty at San Francisco State University have compared grades between the online and in person exams and found a high level of consistency in the grades, suggesting cheating is not occuring in the online exams. The instructional team is now much more confident in the integrity of the online exams. Their online exams have 20 questions, each question is drawn from a separate pool of five choices. The order of the questions and answers are randomized.