I hate proctoring software with a passion and I will never ever ask my students to use it. But I think it's important to understand where the demand for this so

I hate proctoring software with a passion and I will never ever ask my students to use it. But I think it's important to understand where the demand for this software is coming from. In the "old" days, 20 students walked into a room, sat down, and took a test in silence with pencil and paper while the instructor stood there. Now, 350 students go wherever they want, with classmates and many internet-connected devices around them, and take a test unmonitored. Sure, you tell them the exam can be open-note as long as the work alone, that's easy. But they can work together, and that's hard to detect unless they literally copy. The #1 problem is Chegg. They can screenshot and post the questions to Chegg and get answers back very quickly. And they do. To add to this, many schools have a large culture of cheating. Like > 10% of students or more will cheat on unproctored take-home tests. That 10-30% basically ruin exams for everyone, but most of all the instructor. You can't give people relaxed take-home exams, too many will cheat. You have to give a strict time limit. You have to put a ton of effort into making questions obscure or idiosyncratic, rather than just giving standard problems from years past. And remember you have 350 exams to grade, so you can't ask very deep questions. So I can't get that mad at my colleagues who use proctoring software. I can't really offer a reasonable alternative.