My organization wants to put tutorials online and then test users on them (online) so they can get credit toward a certain certificate that we offer. Users could easily "cheat" by opening the tutorial in a separate window and looking up the answers as they take the test. I'd appreciate any thoughts on this situation.

Thanks ahead of time!

Someone will have to monitor the people taking the exam. Even with that, it is very difficult to stop someone from cheating that is absolutely determined to do so.

What are you using to build the tutorials?

Depending on which tool you use, you should be able to place the questions at the end of the tutorial. Once the quiz is started you can disable navigation buttons so participants can't go back to find the answers.

Some tools also let you randomize the order of the questions and answers, and can also prevent users from printing the quiz. Putting a time limit on the quiz also discourages negative behavior.

If it's important that they regurgitate information from memory, then you'll need to set up a separate, proctored testing mechanism. Certification tests are usually proctored events either on paper or online.

Ask yourselves a question - why is it important for this test to be closed book? If you don't have a good answer, don't worry about the proctoring part. Let people learn any way they need to learn. Let the test be a learning tool rather than a "pass/fail" indicator.

Unless you either (a) have control over the PC systems being used by students, or (b) have a live proctor, there is no way to eliminate this scenario.

Online testing which is driven by the student is best for low to medium stakes assessments.

For high stakes, stick with proctored environments, or, accept a certain percentage of cheating and/or not following the rules.

As mentioned, there are a few thing you can implement to minimize cheating. Placing a time limit is a good idea. Shuffling the question order to make memorization more dfficult is also a good idea.

Hope this helps.