Safe Class

Making Online Classes Secure with Anti-Bunk Technology

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Project Theme

Betterment of Online Education

Inspiration

  • Online learning came as a boon to the students who were unable to attend normal school due to the pandemic.
  • But since there are two sides to a coin, the boon soon became a curse when students started taking advantage of this method by bunking classes.
  • Classes are made to impart knowledge to students, but students due to their fragile nature, started cheating the system. By keeping the classes running as a background task, most of the students chose to play games or watch videos during their class.

What it does

  • Safe Class is a platform to prevent bunking in online classes held via Zoom by securing it with tab change detection and terminating the student's session once he/she crosses the click off limit.
  • The students enters his Name, e-mail(optional), Meeting Number and Meeting Password to join the class.
  • Once the entries are validated, the student is presented with an anti-bunk page which houses the zoom meeting of the student and prevents bunking of any kind.
  • The total number of warnings a student is allowed is 3. "Warns" are given on detecting a tab or a window change. After crossing 3 warns, the session termination screen rolls in.
  • The platform also keeps track of how long the student takes to return to the site after each "Warn". If the student takes more than 5 minutes to return, the session termination screen rolls in.
  • Once a session has been terminated, the student won't be able to rejoin the class even if he reloads or goes back.
  • During the session, within intervals of 10 minutes, the camera of the student's device will take a snap of the attendee. These will be used to determine whether the student is actually attending the class or not.
  • On crossing 3 warns or taking more than 5 minutes to return to the platform, the student's name and email are sent to the respective coordinator in a "guilty list".
  • The list of students is presented to the coordinator in a .csv file for ease of viewing.
  • The shots of the students who were caught bunking will be shared with the coordinator in the same "guilty list" in base64 format.

Additional Features

  • On entering the Zoom meeting, the students will be shown a "Custom Instructions" pop-up.
  • It instructs the students on the steps to follow if they are stuck on a particular screen.
  • These instructions are meant to guide the students during a class and can be customized as per the request of the coordinator.
  • Once in the Zoom meeting, the students will be needed to attend the class in a Full-Screen mode.
  • The Full-Screen Mode is forced as it prevents the students from getting distracted during their classes.

Tackling the Workarounds

  • The students attending the class through our platform will be visible to the coordinator, thereby, preventing student using the default Zoom App.
  • The coordinator can view such students just by clicking on the top left Apps icon of their Zoom Meeting.
  • Even if a student disables JavaScript for the website, they won't be able to attend the meeting.
  • The warn counter is not stored in any Session or Local storage which prevents students from changing it.

Use of echo3D and Twilio

  • In order to help teachers and students understand the features of the platform, a demo video was needed for each feature.
  • Adding videos for each feature would not only clutter up the home page but also increase the page load times, thereby, worsening the SEO.
  • Echo3D helps the user get a demo video just by scanning a 400-500kB QR Code which is presented to the user in a separate pop-up once they opt to see it in the Features section of the home page.
  • Twilio plays an important part of the website as the teachers/coordinators are sent the "guilt list" in a .csv file via SMS/e-mail/(any platform of their choice) using the Twilio API.

How we built it

  1. HTML, CSS and BOOTSTRAP - For making a clean, responsive and beautiful UI/UX.
  2. JAVASCRIPT - Plays the most important part as it forms the main anti-bunk tech.
  3. NETLIFY FORMS - Manages the Database of the students in the "guilty list".
  4. ZOOM SDK - Classes are held via this in the browser itself.
  5. ECHO3D - Helps the user understand the platform better.
  6. TWILIO - Used to communicate with the teachers/coordinators.

Challenges we ran into

  • Holding the Zoom Class in a browser.
  • Preventing the workarounds in the anti-bunk tech.
  • Making the website simple to understand for even the not-so tech savvy audience.
  • Incorporating videos was increasing the load-times heavily and affecting the SEO.
  • Communicating with the client (teachers/coordinators) in a smooth manner.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • The main aim while making this was to keep it simple for the teachers using it. By using a combination of the already established Zoom platform and Twilio, the process of incorporating Safe Class in a normal online class has never been easier.
  • The UI of the platform is not only responsive but also beautiful with the addition of AOS Library and Bootstrap CSS. The background is a beautiful texture which is not only easy-on-the-eyes but also gives the user a premium experience.
  • Every feature required to secure an online class is already built into the platform, thereby, preventing the hassle of adding other Zoom Apps.
  • The warning based session termination system makes bunking classes impossible for the students and the platform also prevents crafty students from using workarounds.

What we learned

  • By testing the platform with a sample space of 30 students, problems which a creator wouldn't notice came to light.
  • The workarounds which were tackled earlier was a result of this experiment.
  • Making the platform easy-to-use for first time users who may or may not be well versed in technology.
  • Students, especially teenagers, have a fickle mind and are easily distracted by their mobile phones, social media and games.
  • Due to the advent of 60 second videos, the attention span of our generation has drastically reduced.
  • Even though freedom is important, disciplining the students in their early stages is important as well.

Business Model and Viability of Safe Class

  • Our USP - The only platform which provides this anti-bunk service for online classes and is completely automated instead of relying on human invigilators.
  • The revenue model for Safe Class makes it a profitable venture as none of the anti-bunk tech is dependent on human labor.
  • The plans of Safe Class are listed on the link.
  • Most the work on the work on the platform has been automated making it a sustainable model as well.
  • At present, Zoom has approximately 300-350 Million Daily Meeting Participants. Even if a minute percent of the total users using Zoom for classes and webinars start using Safe Class, the annual turnover could be in millions.

What's next for Safe Class

  1. Reaching out to schools and teachers to facilitate them with our tech.
  2. Providing a platform where not only Zoom but other meeting platforms like Google Meet and Microsoft Teams are also supported.
  3. Making it a 100% automatic business model.
  4. Adding multi-language support and a chatbot to help teachers and students who might face difficulties while using the platform.

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