When the exam starts, the screen locks. No other open tabs, no notes, and absolutely no AI chatbots allowed. Students can only type. That is one way Exam.net can work, using restrictions selected by teachers during online assessments. Haverford is integrating the online testing platform over the course of the 2026–2027 school year. The platform runs tests in a lockdown browser at a time when artificial intelligence is changing how students study and write.
According to exam.net’s parent company, Teachiq AB, more than 270,000 teachers use the software globally. In its high-security mode, students take their tests in a locked-down app. According to the company’s website, it scans in the background for split screens, virtual machines, and remote desktop tools, alerting the teacher to any violations.
Dean of Students and English teacher Mr. Luqman Kolade said the program’s primary purpose is to prevent academic dishonesty.
“It’s much easier to cheat on a computer than it is if you’re in a class writing by hand,” Mr. Kolade said. “Writing by hand is hard on the hand,” he said, “but it is far harder to cheat that way.”
However, he does not see the software as a cure for the root of the problem. “A kid who is going to cheat is going to cheat,” Mr. Kolade said. “Just because he doesn’t cheat in front of you doesn’t mean he’s not going to cheat outside of the classroom.”
The software doesn’t fix morality; it fixes a practical problem: knowing exactly whose work teachers are grading for any given assessment.
English teacher Ms. MeeRee Orlandini sees the question from a different perspective. For her, the issue comes down to how students learn to think.
“I understand that we live in a new world with AI. However, for English and as an English teacher, I don’t believe AI serves a valuable role,” Ms. Orlandini said. “AI seems to be about efficiency and synthesizing answers quickly, but reading, writing, learning how to read and write, and thinking and making decisions require the opposite: they require the long, arduous road of inefficiency and stumbling through. Only by doing it yourself, unencumbered, can you get better.”
“I think of it as a distraction-free tool that better creates a conversation between student and teacher,”
Ms. Meeree orlandini
Exam.net, she said, is not an instantaneous fix for the learning process, but it is a start.
“I think of it as a distraction-free tool that better creates a conversation between student and teacher,” Ms. Orlandini said.
Mr. Kolade said AI can play a more useful role outside of assessments. He encourages students to prompt AI for study guides and practice exams based on questions he provides.
Some students want the school to go further in balancing AI use with academic integrity.
Fourth Former Munashe Kachidza said, “I think that being so strict about AI is actually going to backfire on the school.”
Kachidza suggested offering an AI elective or dedicating several Community Periods to having AI professionals teach students about its proper and ethical use.
Fourth Former Alex Peter agrees, noting that businesses use AI constantly.
Students, too, are split on how frequently cheating happens. Kachidza said he believes AI is heavily used on essays and short assignments.
“The line between AI helping and cheating is very thin,” Kachidza said.
Peter said, “Guys use [AI] to cheat, but not as much as teachers think.”
Exam.net can lock a screen for an hour-long exam; it can’t answer what students and teachers are still working out: where AI aids learning and where it replaces it.
