ACADEMIS: A Secure and Reliable Web-Based Examination Portal for St. Clare College

The transition to online learning has made digital examination systems essential, yet security and integrity remain major challenges. This study developed ACADEMIS, a secure web-based examination portal for St. Clare College, addressing problems of scoring inaccuracy, security vulnerabilities, and inefficient manual processes. The system was developed using the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Waterfall Model with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL. Key features include role-based secure authentication (with bcrypt password hashing), automated grading, tab switching detection with screenshot capture and a three-strike warning system, and real-time activity logging. A quantitative evaluation was conducted with 100 respondents (97 BSCS students, 3 faculty) using a adapted System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire.
Results showed strong user acceptance (Grand Mean = 4.29, Strongly Agree), with respondents strongly agreeing on the importance of data security (4.47), encryption (4.36), and automatic scoring (4.39). While preliminary testing was conducted with five concurrent users, the system demonstrated stable performance. The study concludes that ACADEMIS provides a viable, secure alternative to paper-based examinations, though future work should include large-scale load testing and AI-based proctoring features.

online examination system, web-based portal, automated grading, activity monitoring, academic integrity, tab switching and screenshot detection.

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