Online exam advice from the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Richard James

Professor Richard James, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and Undergraduate), has provided the following advice.

Release of the exams timetable to students

The Semester 1 exams timetable was released to students on Monday, May 25. A set of information pages for students have also been released that are linked from the exams page.

These pages include details on the below.  It would be helpful for teaching staff to be familiar with this information:

  • The exam dates and timetable and how students access their timetable
  • Exam types showing how each specific exam option will be conducted
  • How students can access technical support during their exam
  • Preparation that students should make before sitting an online exam
  • What support services are available to help students get ready for their exams, and
  • Information about well-being during the exam period, special consideration, special and supplementary exams and alternative exam arrangements.

Detailed support for staff preparing end of semester assessments

Learning Environments has a range of supports available to academic staff preparing end of semester assessments. These include:

  • A set of “how to” pages to help staff prepare their assessments in the LMS.  The summary page is here with links to more detailed technical guides for each assessment option. A useful summary table in PDF format with links is also here.
  • Training resources, including a suite of webinars and online drop-in sessions to support staff as they prepare final assessments. Many of these resources are linked from the relevant “how to” pages. Further details of guides and support resources can be found here.

As with in-place exams, subject coordinators have important roles to play in supporting students during their exams. The Exams Office in Students and Scholarly Services is preparing a brief guidebook for subject coordinators. This will be emailed to all subject coordinators offering centrally-supported exams in the coming days.

Required exam “practice runs” to assist students to prepare for the online examination experience

Many, if not most, of our students will be experiencing digital exam conditions for the first time. The staff-facing “how-to” pages strongly recommend that staff should provide students with an opportunity to have a “practice run” with a model assessment that replicates the actual experience students can expect when they undertake their real exam.

I particularly want to emphasise the need for staff to provide such exam “practice runs”. This will give students an opportunity to experience both the technical aspects of their forthcoming digital exam and additionally these exam “practice runs” should include some suitable indicative questions so that students are well prepared for this new experience.  These exam “practice runs” need only be short, but they should include all the question types and steps that students will be expected to complete in the live exam. These “practice runs” have the potential to:

  • Help to alleviate students’ concerns about the exam format and technology,
  • Decrease the number of special consideration requests, as students will be better prepared for the real exam conditions, and
  • Provide a “practice run” of sorts for academic staff in the set up and marking of online exams, with time to make changes before the real exam takes place.

Practice exam questions are important.  It is customary for students to use previous exam papers to help them prepare for their exams, but with the move to open book assessments this semester these may no longer reflect the style of questions they will encounter in their online exams. Subject Coordinators are asked to provide students with illustrative exam questions to help them understand the likely style of exam questions.