Hi Craig

 

We use the Blackboard Test tool for some exams.

 

1.   More often it would be students taking the exam simultaneously in different adjacent computer labs (with different invigilators), and ideally a couple of people familiar enough with Blackboard to sort out technical issues to look in on each room.  It’s useful to be able to see in the Grade Centre shortly after the exam starts if anyone has failed to start.

However sometimes numbers do result in shifts throughout the day:  in such cases questions need to be drawn from a large pool. 

 

2.  We recommend certain settings:  Force Completion (so only 1 attempt is allowed: the exam cannot be re-accessed later outside the exam room even if the link was still available, which it shouldn’t be), Auto-submit: Off (so if something occurs that requires everybody or an individual to get an extra 5 or 10 minutes, the Test doesn’t submit when the timer hits zero).  We also recommend tutors set up a hidden duplicate link to the same Test, so that if a student accidentally Submits the whole exam after the first question, or kicks out the plug, or something similar, we can unhide the duplicate for that student and set them off again.  For this reason it’s better not to Randomise the question order.  (The tutor should also have paper scripts as per Duncan’s reply).  We also recommend displaying all questions at once so students can review their answers as they can in a paper exam. 

 

3.  No.  It would be good to do that but we don’t, so you need to keep an eye on what’s going on (up to 30 in the labs, generally try to have fewer though).

 

Hope this helps,

Dave Cheseldine

 

 

 

 

Apologies for cross posting….

 

We are currently investigating how to best support our growing number of online examinations (usually using Blackboard). At some of our sites, we do not have large enough computer pool rooms to cater for all students in a cohort (e.g. 200 students) which results in multiple rooms being utilised at any one time, stretching technical staff.

 

I wondered if anyone would share their experiences of how they cater for large scale computer based examinations? Specifically:

 

1)      Do you encourage ‘shifts’ where cohorts sit the exam in shifts throughout the day to space out numbers?

2)      Do you have any specific policies in your examination regulations about online exams (e.g. policies around network failure, technical issues etc)

3)      Do you ‘lock down’ your PC’s during examinations (we are testing Impero and would be happy to share our findings)

 

 

Many thanks in advance

 

Craig Wakefield

 

Learning Technologies Adviser

University of Brighton (Eastbourne Campus)

 

Tel: 01273 64 (4112)

Mob: 07964431090

Twitter: @craig_wakefield

Blog: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/elearning/

 

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