Unproctored vs. Proctored Online Exams: The Real Risk Difference

Short answer. Unproctored online exams have a cheating attempt rate around 70% and a very low detection rate. Proctored online exams have an attempt rate around 15% and a much higher detection rate. The two formats are not the same risk decision and they should not be approached with the same workflow. This post breaks down what each format actually monitors, where the real risk lives, and which tools are usable in each.

The two formats are not on the same scale

A "Canvas quiz" can mean almost anything. The format determines the risk math:

Format	What it monitors	Cheating attempt rate	Catch rate
Unproctored Canvas quiz	Browser events (focus loss, timing)	~70%	very low
Canvas + Lockdown Browser (no camera)	Browser locked, no extensions, no other apps	~40%	low
Canvas + Respondus Monitor or Honorlock (webcam, no live human)	Webcam, screen, room scan, AI flagging	~15%	moderate
Live human proctor + screen recording	Everything above, plus a real person watching	~5%	high

The shift from "unproctored" to "proctored with webcam" is the single biggest change in risk in your academic career. The shift from "proctored with webcam" to "live human proctor" is smaller but still meaningful.

If you do not know which format your exam is in, find out before you do anything else. The quiz instructions, the syllabus, and the email from the professor all usually say. If the exam requires you to download anything, it is proctored. If you can take it in normal Chrome, it is not.

What an unproctored quiz actually monitors

An unproctored Canvas quiz monitors browser-level events only:

• Which question is currently rendered.
• When you answered a question and what the answer was.
• When you changed an answer.
• When the page lost focus.
• When the page regained focus.
• When you submitted.

That is it. It does not see other tabs. It does not see other applications. It does not see your phone. It does not record your screen, your camera, or your microphone. There is no live person watching.

This is the format with the lowest detection rate, the highest attempt rate, and the most workflow flexibility. It is also the format that most Chrome-extension AI tools, including ExamClutch, are designed for.

The honest framing of the risk: in an unproctored quiz, the only things that show up in evidence are browser events and your final answers. A workflow that does not generate suspicious browser events and that does not produce a "too perfect" final answer is the lowest-signature path through it.

What Lockdown Browser (without camera) adds

Lockdown Browser is a separate program that takes over your screen and disables:

• All other browser tabs.
• All other applications.
• Screen sharing tools.
• Browser extensions.
• Right-click, copy, paste, and print screen.
• The ability to take screenshots.

It does not turn on your camera. It does not record your screen. It does not flag you for "looking away."

What this changes practically:

• Chrome extensions do not run. That includes ExamClutch and every other AI extension. The extension does not load because the browser does not load.
• Tab-switching is impossible. There are no other tabs.
• External apps are blocked. You cannot Alt-Tab to ChatGPT.

What it does not change:

• Your phone still works. Lockdown Browser does not see your phone.
• Paper notes still work. It does not see your desk.
• A second laptop still works. It only locks down the laptop running it.

The catch rate in Lockdown-only environments is higher than unproctored because the obvious paths are closed off. The remaining cheating paths are physical-world ones, and those are harder to catch from the software side but easier from the in-person side (a TA noticing you looking down at your lap repeatedly).

What webcam proctoring adds (Respondus Monitor, Honorlock, Proctorio)

This is the big jump. Webcam proctoring tools add:

• Live webcam recording.
• Live screen recording.
• A room scan at the start.
• ID verification.
• AI flagging for "suspicious behavior."
• Eye-tracking heuristics.
• Detection of additional faces in frame.
• Detection of a second monitor.
• Detection of headphones, phones, books on the desk.
• Detection of audio cues (talking, typing in a way that does not match your answers).
• Virtual machine detection.
• Process detection (does ChatGPT-desktop happen to be running).

The AI flags are reviewed by a human (sometimes a real person, sometimes the professor) after the exam. Flagged segments are timestamped and queued for review. A typical proctoring report includes a "suspicion score" and a list of flagged moments with video clips.

The detection rate in this environment is much higher because the evidence is video, not browser events. Video is concrete. The Canvas log shows "focus loss" — proctoring video shows "the student looked at a phone on their lap for 4 seconds."

Chrome extensions do not work in this environment either for the same reason as Lockdown Browser. The proctoring software either runs alongside Lockdown Browser or it requires its own kiosk-mode browser. Extensions are disabled.

What live human proctoring adds

The highest catch rate format. A live person watches your camera in real time. They can:

• Ask you to move the camera.
• Ask you to show your hands.
• Ask you to redo the room scan.
• Pause your exam if something looks wrong.
• File a real-time integrity report.

The attempt rate in this format is near zero for most students. The cost of being caught in real time, with a human looking at the moment, is too high. Almost everyone who tries it gets caught.

Which workflow fits which format

Concrete advice keyed to the format:

Unproctored Canvas quiz:

• Inline-DOM extensions like ExamClutch are the lowest-signature workflow. No tab switching, no copy-paste, no focus loss.
• Pace your answers. Do not submit a 40-question quiz in 4 minutes.
• Watch for duplicate-answer patterns with friends taking the same quiz.
• Close all notifications before starting.

Lockdown Browser only:

• No extensions work. ExamClutch does not load.
• The only paths are physical-world (phone, notes, second device) and those carry their own risks.
• Treat this as a sit-down exam and prepare like one.

Webcam proctoring:

• Treat the camera as a recording, because it is.
• Do not look down at your lap. Do not look off-screen for long stretches.
• Do not have a phone in frame at any point.
• AI flags do not equal a finding, but they queue your exam for human review.
• An inline-DOM extension still would not load — there is no path here.

Live human proctor:

• Do not.

The most common mistake students make

Treating a proctored exam like an unproctored one. The two formats produce wildly different evidence and the same workflow that survives an unproctored quiz will get a student caught in a proctored one.

The second most common mistake is the inverse — being too cautious in an unproctored quiz because the student assumes Canvas is "watching" in some richer way than it actually is. Canvas, without proctoring, is a passive event logger. It does not see other tabs, it does not record video, and it does not have an AI flagging system. Most of what students fear in unproctored Canvas exams is anxiety about a monitoring system that does not exist.

The smart approach is to know exactly which format you are in and to act accordingly. The risk profile is completely different.

How ExamClutch fits this map

ExamClutch is explicitly designed for the unproctored end of this spectrum. The product:

• Reads questions from the LMS DOM directly — no tab switching, no copy-paste, no focus-loss events.
• Applies answers via double-click — pacing is under your control.
• Works on Canvas, Brightspace, Blackboard, Moodle, McGraw Hill, and several other LMSes.
• Does not work under Lockdown Browser, Respondus Monitor, Honorlock, or Proctorio. Chrome extensions cannot load in those environments.
• Does not work for long-form essays. Short-answer fill works; essay generation does not.

The honest pitch: it is the lowest-signature workflow for the format where most quizzes still live (unproctored), and it does not pretend to work for the formats where it cannot.

FAQ

Can a school proctor a Canvas quiz retroactively? No. Proctoring tools have to be set up before the quiz starts. If the quiz was unproctored when you took it, no proctoring data was collected.

Does Respondus LockDown Browser record my screen? LockDown Browser alone (the basic version) does not record. LockDown Browser + Respondus Monitor (the webcam version) does record both screen and camera. They are different products, frequently confused.

Can proctoring software detect AI Chrome extensions? It can detect that an extension is loaded if it has access to the browser. More commonly, it just disables all extensions by running the browser in kiosk mode. Either way, an extension is not a workable path under proctoring.

Is using a phone safer than using an extension in a proctored exam? A camera-based proctoring tool can see you look at your lap and will flag it. A phone is not invisible. Webcam proctoring catches phone use through eye movement patterns more often than students realize.

Why is the unproctored detection rate so low? Because the evidence is weak. Browser events without video do not produce the kind of concrete story a formal case needs. Most professors know this and do not escalate on browser events alone.

If proctoring is so much stricter, why do some students still cheat in proctored exams? Mostly through physical-world methods (notes off-camera, second device, headphone earpieces) that the camera cannot see, and through external help (a friend in another room) that the camera cannot hear. These methods carry real risk and we do not recommend them.

Related reading

• How Often Do Students Actually Get Caught Cheating?
• What Happens If You Get Caught Cheating on Canvas?
• Does Canvas Detect Cheating?
• Canvas Privacy Myths
• Canvas Quiz Help: The Complete Student Playbook

If your exams are unproctored and you want a workflow that does not generate the signals that get flagged, see how ExamClutch works or check pricing.