Possibilities of OpalExam to improve exam assessment and viewing

Abstract

The switch from offline to online exams presents teachers with new challenges. Not all challenges are technically, a challenge is also the own demand to model online exams so that cheating attempts can either be prevented or do not offer advantages but disadvantages to the cheater. Teachers have various options at their disposal when modelling exams in OpalExam: Definition of random values by using variables in the assignment, creation of several variants of an assignment that are randomly assigned to the students or also change of the assignment order for the students and definition of a linear run through the exam. Of course the individual options can also be combined.

If a non-linear progression (students can jump back and forth between tasks at will) through the exam is the goal, the exams become more complex by choosing the first two options. While this makes it more difficult for students to collaborate, it also makes it more difficult for the examiner to evaluate the student's answers. In this paper, it will be shown how the assessment effort can be reduced while at the same time making it easier for the students to review the exam results.