If you are a teacher wanting to use Quiz Star or are a student who has a teacher that uses the platform then it is only natural to wonder if it is safe. Is this an appropriate tool for teachers or students to be using?
Here is all that you need to know about this website to determine if it is safe for you to use:
Is Quiz Star a Safe Site?
The Quiz Star website is a reliable site for creating educational quizzes – however, the site has not been created for authorized testing purposes and doesn’t have the features necessary to create a secure testing platform for students to use for graded exams.
Is Quiz Star a Scam?
No, Quiz Star is certainly not a scam. It is easy to wonder about this as one of the more popular forms of phishing scams is to use quiz websites.
With these scam websites, the site asks you three questions and then will request personal details. The scams are often associated with popular brands.
This isn’t the case with Quiz Star at all, however. For one thing, the site is associated with 4Teachers.org platform, a well-known site used by teachers as a free educational tool.
Not only does the website allow you to create quizzes as you wish, but it also doesn’t require any personal information either. You merely have to provide details such as your email address so that you can set up an account on the website.
Can You Use Quiz Star Safely?
Yes, you can use Quiz Star safely. As mentioned, this is a reputable site. You can use all the features of the website without any issues.
And to a certain degree, the Quiz Star website is quite secure. For instance, anything that you do on your account is only visible to you. Other users will not be able to see or use the quizzes that you created.
Your students only have access to the quizzes if you choose to share it with them. This means that certain proprietary information can’t be stolen off of the site or your account.
Students can also use the website safely. For the most part, they simply have access to the quizzes that you have created for them. They will not be able to make any changes to these quizzes but rather simply take them.
Once they take the quiz, they will receive an appropriate grade for the work that they have done.
What is the Best Way to Use Quiz Star?
It is best to use Quiz Star as it was intended – as a basic quizzing tool. You can create quizzes for your students and then give them access to it.
If you want the quiz to be more in line with a study tool, then there is a feature where you can allow your students to check answers for questions that they got wrong.
This will allow them to learn as they go and do better in the future.
Why Shouldn’t You Use Quiz Star for Exams?
The thing to keep in mind here is that Quiz Star is a rather rudimentary website. It is a not-for-profit platform that is meant to help teachers assign their students quizzes.
Due to this, the website offers the bare minimum in features. This also means that there are almost no features to ensure an appropriate testing platform for students.
Most proper testing sites place limitations on the exam environment. At the very least, they ensure that it is a timed quiz.
Many platforms today also work to prevent students from cheating. They do this by limiting access to other sites, browsers, and even applications on their computer. Quiz Star doesn’t do this.
Quiz Star also doesn’t monitor the online activity of students or use features like student check-ins or facial recognition to determine if students are cheating or not.
Can You Use Quiz Star as a Testing Platform?
The Quiz Star website discourages you from doing this. As they themselves mention, they aren’t secure enough to guarantee the validity of the exam.
However, if you do want to use it to hold an exam, you can. It is best to do it for smaller quizzes or tests, though, instead of final exams. Otherwise, you may not be able to give students the most accurate grades.
If this is something that you choose to do, then you will need to take your own precautions to ensure that students aren’t cheating during the exam.
Start by ensuring that you only conduct an exam when students are in class at the same time. Make sure that the quiz is timed.
You should make sure that you have disabled the feature on the quiz that allows students to see the correct answer.
You will also need to engage in physical invigilating. You will need to walk around the room to monitor the students’ screens. Unfortunately, this doesn’t guarantee that students will not cheat but it may discourage it to a certain extent.
Before you use Quiz Star for testing purposes, make sure to check with your school administration. As there may be concerns regarding the security of the website, they may not allow you to use the site under certain testing situations.
Is Quiz Star Safe?
Yes, Quiz Star is a safe website because it is a reliable platform – nevertheless, this site is only meant to be used as a teaching and study aid – it doesn’t contain enough proctoring or security features to be utilized as a testing platform.