Conducting the examination
Make sure that a teacher is available at a specific time at the beginning of the examination to be able to provide clarification if needed, just like with an on-campus examination.
Use a plagiarism check (Urkund) to prevent and detect deceptive conduct in an examination. If the course syllabus allows such, a take-home examination can be supplemented with another written or oral examination to prevent and detect any deceptive conduct (cheating).
Anonymity
Examinees shall be anonymous during written examinations. In all systems, it is possible to make a submission anonymously, i.e. that the teacher does not see the names of examinees during assessment. There are, however, some limitations.
Examinees upload or submit their answers from IP and email addresses that are in principle identifiable, and uploaded files contain metadata that may include the author’s name. It is therefore important to inform examinees that uploaded documents should not contain name and personal identity number, but should instead use the examinee’s anonymity code.
Some word processing programs add information about the author to the document. Examinees should therefore be encouraged to remove any personal information from a document before uploading it.
Anonymous examination in Inspera
In the e-examination system Inspera, it is easy to create an anonymous submission. An examination session is created in the Student Portal, and then examinees who registered via Ladok are linked to this examination session. In this way, the correcting teacher does not receive information about the identity of the examinees sitting the examination.
Anonymous examination in Studium
In Studium, it is possible to make a submission anonymously, so that the teacher does not see the examinees’ names in the gradebook, the Speedgrader correction tool, or Urkund. After assessment, the teacher publishes the results, at which time anonymity is removed from the submission.
How to create an anonymous submission in Studium:
- Create a new exercise.
- Select “Anonymous assessment”.
- After assessment, select “Publish results”. The names of all examinees then become visible, including those who were not graded.
In the list of examinees in Speedgrader, the examinees are assigned a number, e.g. “student 1”, “student 2”, etc. These numbers should not be used as an anonymity code. Anonymous submissions in Studium are best assessed immediately in Speedgrader. For each examinee's submission, there is an assessment revision that logs all changes/events in the system.
Note that it is not indicated to the examinees that the assignment is assessed anonymously until the time of submission. It is therefore important to inform the examinees of this. They should also receive instructions on how attached files should be labelled without stating their own name. When anonymity is removed from an assignment, the examinees receive notice that the assignment has been “unmuted”.
Studium is not suitable for printouts of anonymous submissions, as anonymity is removed from the printout.
Anonymous examination in the Student Portal
How to create an anonymous submission in the Student Portal:
- Click on “Add new function” in the left-hand column.
- Select “Submission”.
- Tick “Individual submission”.
- Tick “Anonymous submission”.
- Click on the “Save” box at the bottom.
Once a submission has been saved, it will no longer be possible to change its status from open to anonymous, or vice versa. When copying an anonymous submission, the copy is also marked as anonymous. For each new submission that is created, new anonymity codes are generated. Thus, an examinee cannot have the same anonymity code for different submissions. If the submissions undergo a plagiarism check (which is recommended), only the examinee’s anonymity code is shown in the Urkund plagiarism detection system.
Anonymity in Zoom
Zoom is used for oral examinations. When creating a Zoom room, a “waiting room” can be created where each examinee waits until they are admitted to the Zoom room. The teacher can then admit one examinee at a time, once the previous examinee has completed the examination and left the Zoom room. This way, each examinee has no knowledge of who else is taking the examination.
Read more about the waiting room feature in Zoom.
In cases where identity must be established before the examination begins, an ID check should be carried out in breakout rooms. ID checks must not take place in groups.
Information to examinees in connection with the examination
Information is best given to examinees in an information document that works the same way as a cover sheet in an on-campus written examination. This information is positioned first in the examination. The intention is to give examinees the information required to conduct the examination.
For the examination, there must be information on how the student can get in touch with the department if the student discovers ambiguities or errors in the examination, or encounters technical problems. This information should be positioned in such a way that the examinee can return to it if necessary.
The information shall include:
- Time to complete the examination
- Routes for contacting the examining teacher and/or administrative staff
- Permitted aids
- A clear statement indicating whether collaboration with other students is permitted or not permitted.
The information may also include:
- Score limits for grades
- Special instructions for how answers are to be given
- Date for re-examination.