Using Preferences as User Identification in the Online Examination

Abstract

User authentication is a very important online environment issue. More researches are needed to focus on enhancing user authentication methods for online examination. This paper is a review of online authentication methods for online examination and propose a novel authentication method called “Preferences Based Authentication” PrBA. The proposed method based on the exam taker design preferences chosen for online exams. A lot of design features could be applied to the exam interface, such as font (size, face, and style, colour), background colour, the number of questions per page, group question by (Type, difficulty) and timer type. These preferences have a close relationship with user characteristics, whether physical (vision, hearing, etc.), cognitive (memory, etc.), psychomotor (attention, focus, etc.), demographics (age, gender, etc.) or experiences (professional skills). The PrBA proposed in this paper could be used as an alternative to resolve the problem of user authentication within online exams.