AWS for M&E Blog
ETS-Wheebox enhances online exam security with Amazon IVS real-time streaming
In today’s connected world, many tasks previously accomplished in-person are now done remotely over the internet, from education and training, to work and medical appointments. Offering a secure platform for online exam administration, education technology provider Educational Testing Service (ETS)-Wheebox supports nearly three million exams each year and is growing fast.
With an infrastructure built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), ETS-Wheebox is the leading online exam platform in India and seeing rapid adoption worldwide. To ensure an even higher level of security for test proctoring, the company integrated Amazon Interactive Video Service (Amazon IVS) for managed real-time streaming and recording. With the new functionality, proctors can monitor test takers and act in real time, with a video, audio, and chat recording of every session automatically generated for review needs.
“We’ve seen a steady increase in customer demand for streaming and recording, and expect that trend to continue,” said Pawan Kumar, ETS-Wheebox CTO. “Amazon IVS gives us the ability to do that easily, with autoscaling and zero downtime. As participant concurrency and the number of exams administered increases, we are confident that we can reliably support new interest, and without costly operational overhead.”
Ongoing AWS journey
Formed as a startup in 2011, the company migrated its tech stack to AWS in 2019 and has continually upgraded its infrastructure to meet evolving customer needs. Its clients use the solution for pre-hiring assessments, educational exams, Indian government certifications, and more.
Acquired by ETS in 2023, ETS-Wheebox also administers highly secure exams, with parameters defined by the customer. They can select from a range of options, such as using a live or AI-powered exam proctor, whether a secure browser is needed, or if no other software should be running during testing. To further bolster exam security, ETS-Wheebox supports seamless continuous streaming and recording with Amazon IVS.
Prior to its Amazon IVS deployment, for video recordings, the platform was using client-side recording and then uploading on server, which met the needs of the local market. To produce validated results for standardized tests administered by ETS, such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), Graduate Record Exam (GRE), or Praxis exam, the team needed continuous recording and streaming capabilities on a global scale.
“Amazon IVS plays an important role in our high stakes testing for ETS flagship products for customers in 180 countries,” shared Kumar.
Implementing Amazon IVS
Kumar and his development team evaluated several options when looking to add streaming and recording functionality to ETS-Wheebox. They ultimately selected Amazon IVS due to its ease of integration with the existing AWS tech stack, cost, and performance.
Kumar explained, “Price was a major factor for us, and Amazon IVS was more competitive, as well as technically superior compared to alternatives. We also received a lot of support from AWS to ensure our architecture could drive the results we wanted.”
With its enhanced security feature configured, ETS-Wheebox streams and records two video feeds during exams: the participant’s face and their desktop activity. The solution uses a combination of services, including Amazon IVS Real-Time Streaming, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), AWS Lambda, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) and Amazon CloudWatch
Planning for the next phase
Given the enthusiastic customer response to the initial streaming and recording functionality, the ETS-Wheebox development team is now experimenting with mobile webcam support. As a further security measure, this would give proctor’s a greater view of test takers surroundings so that they can ensure exam guidelines are followed.
Learn more about live streaming at scale with Amazon IVS, or get in touch with an Amazon IVS expert.