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EXAM Moodle

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1. What is EXAM Moodle?
2. How is EXAM Moodle different to regular Moodle?
3. What is meant by exam?
4. What is meant by current time and location?
5. What is exam review?
6. How is the EXAM Moodle Quiz settings different?
7. How is the EXAM Moodle Edit quiz page different?
8. How are the EXAM Moodle Group override and User override pages different?
9. How is the EXAM Moodle Results page different?
10. How are EXAM Moodle Statistics different?
11. How is the EXAM Moodle Review page different?
12. How are EXAM Moodle roles different to HUJI Moodle roles?
13. How is the EXAM Moodle quiz attempt different?
14. How are the Extension roles assigned?
15. What is a BYOD exam?
16. What is SEB?
17. How do I require students to use SEB
18. What is SEB with HUJI configuration?
19. Does requiring SEB with HUJI configuration provide sufficient security for BYOD exams?
20. How can one ensure that students do not take a BYOD exam some place else?
21. How can I prevent students allowing a remote agent to control their laptops?
22. What if some students will be taking the exam on workstations and others on their own laptops?
23. Why can't a student do his exam?
24. What if a student has more than one exam?
25. What if Max questions to grade is set and an Essay question was unintentionally answered?


Under construction...


General



What is EXAM Moodle?
EXAM Moodle is a variation of Moodle that, from the point of view of a student, behaves like an exam system.
It was developed at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel (HUJI).
Exams are based on Moodle quizzes.


How is EXAM Moodle different to regular Moodle?
Guest access is not allowed.
If the user has an exam at the current time and location, he is redirected to the exam.
(If the exam requires SEB, or SEB with HUJI configuration, and he is not using it, he is instead thrown out with an appropriate message.)
Otherwise, if he used the special review URL, and he has exams that have been graded and released for review, he is taken to the review page. See below.
Otherwise, if has a privileged role in any courses, EXAM Moodle behaves as a regular Moodle - but only those courses effectively exist.
Otherwise, he is thrown out with an appropriate message.
Note: Ordinary access rules to courses and modules (other than those noted in this page) are irrelevent for unprivileged users.


What is meant by exam?
An exam is a quiz which has been marked as Active.
In flex courses, students register to take the an exam at a time of their choosing.
(Registration is through RishumNet. Currently, a few courses in the faculty of Natural Sciences are flex courses.)
In flex courses, the Moed must be set
In other courses, the time of the exam (i.e. Opening time and either Closing time or Time limit) must be set


What is meant by current time and location?
In order to be marked active, a quiz must have
    • In flex courses: A Moed and Time limit.
      A user is considered to have an exam at the current time if he has registered to take an exam in that course/moed and and it is not more than an hour after his registration time, or he has already begin the quiz that day, and the quiz Time limit has not elapsed.
      The quiz Time limit can be overridden
    • In other courses: An Opening time and either a Closing time or a Time limit.
      A user is considered to have an exam at the current time if there is a quiz in a course to which he is enrolled as a student, and it is not more than an hour after the quiz Opening time, or he has already begin the quiz that day, and the quiz finishing time or Time limit has not elapsed.
      The quiz Opening time, Closing time and Time limit can all be overridden
  1. A network restriction (i.e. Require subnets must be set)
    Require subnets can be a combination of IPs, IP ranges, rooms and WIFIs
    (A room or WIFI is effectively a list of IPs. EXAM Moodle knows about most rooms that are used for exams on the various HUJI campuses. The only WIFI currently supported is exams-test.)
    A user is considered to have an exam at the current location if Require subnets is set and his IP complies with it.
    Unlike in regular Moodle, Require subnets can be overridden.
    Note: If, for whatever reason, a network restriction cannot be set then a password must be set instead.


What is exam review?
The teacher can release the exam for review.
A student can view all his exams that have been released for review at http://exam2.cs.huji.ac.il/review.
Note: A student never has access to anything in EXAM Moodle other than exams that have been released for review (and, of course, his current quiz attempt, if any).
See How is the EXAM Moodle Review page different?



How is EXAM Moodle different to regular Moodle?



How is the EXAM Moodle Quiz settings different?
In brief:
  • Only settings relevant to an exam that is intended to be taken in real time are shown.
  • Some of the several additional or altered Quiz settings include:
    • Active exam: If enabled, the restrictions listed in the previous two questions apply
    • Navigation method: If set to Sequential, the student cannot move on to next page before he has answered all the questions on the current page.
    • Supplementary documentation: A file that will be available to the student during the exam
    • Show save button: Useful if there are essay questions or pages with many questions.
      See section Quiz autosave of Is there an autosave feature? in the FAQ for teachers for how it interacts with autosave
    • Section Exam review options: Various options that determine whether the student can review his quiz, from what IPs he can review it, and exactly what he sees.
      (Section Review options controls only what the student can see during the exam.)
      One can determine whether the student can review either all questions that he answered or only questions that he did not answer entirely correctly. (He cannot review questions that he did not answer or that were Disqualified. See
      Also, whether he can review all answers, only his chosen answer or only his chosen answer plus the correct answer
See collapsed and expanded views of the Quiz settings page.


How is the EXAM Moodle Edit quiz page different?
For each quiz section, one can set
  • Max questions to grade: If the student answers more than that number of questions, he is graded only on that number of questions, in the order of his layout.
    All further questions that he answered are marked as Disqualified
    Disqualified questions are not included in overall grade, averages or statistics and the student does not see them in his review.
  • Keep the highest: If more than this number of questions are graded, only this number of questions - the ones with the highest marks - are included in the overall grade
Of course, these options make sense only if all questions in the section are of equal value.
Also, Keep the highest (if set) must be less than Max questions to grade (if set) and both must be less than the number of questions in the section.
Any attempt to set any other value will be ignored.
See an example of an Edit quiz page


How are the EXAM Moodle Group override and User override pages different?
  • The Require subnets (rooms/WIFIs and/or IPs) and Browser security can also be overridden
  • The User override page lists the Closing times and Time limits that the student would receive by virtue of his Extension role (if any) and Group overrides (if any). See example.
    The student must be selected before opening the User override page.


How is the EXAM Moodle Results page different?
  • Column Time limit shows the time limit taking into account whether the student has an Extension role (see ) and/or a Group overide or User override (see ).
    For quizzes that are already finished, it shows the time limit that was in effect during the attempt.
  • In addition to the Overall average row, there is also a Standard deviation row.
    Both do not take into account Disqualified and Unanswered questions
  • Disqualified grade_disqualified and Unanswered grade_notanswered questions are distinguished from Incorrect grade_incorrect answers


How are EXAM Moodle Statistics different?
Disqualified and Unanswered questions are not included in the calculations.
There is a notice at the top of the page saying so.


How is the EXAM Moodle Review page different?
  • By default, a Student sees only questions that he answered and were not Disqualified, and only the answers that he chose.
    This can be changed. See question How is the EXAM Moodle quiz Settings page different?
  • Both Teacher and Student can toggle between paged and unpaged views of the quiz.
    In the Student view, empty pages are not shown i.e the Next page or Previous page link points to the next or previous page with viewable questions.
  • A Teacher can toggle between his view and the Student view


How are EXAM Moodle roles different to HUJI Moodle roles?
  • Two additional roles exist at system and course levels: Extension 25% and Extension 50%
    A student with either role automatically gets an extension on the default Time limit and Closing time and also on any Group override Time limit and Closing time.
    Such students are everywhere marked with a E or F respectively.
  • Teachers and TAs see only IDs - not names, emails or pictures. This can be waived by assigning the secondary role of Unrestricted
    They can search the quiz Results page by ID prefix.
See Roles Miniguide.


How is the EXAM Moodle quiz attempt different?
  • The header is fixed (i.e. non-scrolling) and includes the course name and moed (if any), and Student's name, ID number and picture.
  • There are links to the Supplementary documentation (if any) and Instructions (aka Description) on every question page. Both open as popups
  • There isn't a navigation bar or footer, or any links to anywhere outside the quiz.
  • The wording is appropriate to an exam
  • So as to allow a student to choose not to answer a particular question, radio buttons (in e.g. Multichoice and True/False questions) can be toggled.
  • If the quiz Navigation method is Sequential, clicking on the Next page link is ineffectual until all the questions in the current page have been answered




Extension roles



How are the Extension roles assigned?
The Extension roles are automatically assigned, at system level, from information from Minhal Talmidim. They are updated daily.
Minhal Talmidim grants extensions to users for a particular year unconditionally, or per degree, semester, course, or up to a certain date.
Extensions are either 25% or 50%.
Ambiguities are resolved as follows:
  • If a date is specified, there is no extension after that date
  • If both semester and course are specified, the semester is ignored
  • Otherwise, if the semester is specified, the extension is for all that semester's courses (regardless of the date of the exam)
  • If the degree is specified, it is invariably the student's degree in that year and is therefore irrelevant
There are equivalent Extension that can be assigned at course level.



BYOD



What is a BYOD exam?
BYOD stands for Bring Your Own Device.
In the case of an exam, it implies that students will be allowed to take the exam on their own personal laptops.


What is SEB?
SEB stands for Safe Exam Browser SEBIcon_40_2x.png.
It is an application that is available for Windows and MacOS.
It is essentially a full-screen web-browser that opens on a pre-configured URL - in our case EXAM Moodle.
By default, the browser has no navigation menus and keyboard shortcuts (such as Back and Forward). Also system control by keyboard and mouse is disabled.
SEB (or equivalent) should be used for all exams - regular and BYOD.


How do I require students to use SEB
To force students to use SEB, select one of the Require the user of Safe Exam Browser options from the Browser security menu in the quiz or override settings.
If in all the exam workstations, SEB will be running and students won't be able to quit it, it is not strictly necessary to set the Browser security.
However, in a BYOD exam, it is absolutely essential.
Students should configure their SEB with Start URL https://exam2.cs.huji.ac.il.
However, SEB has many other configuration options. For proper security in BYOD exams, students should use SEB with the HUJI configuration.
See next question.


What is SEB with HUJI configuration?
To save students the trouble of configuring SEB on their laptops, and also to ensure that they cannot exit SEB during the exam
(or allow themselves to navigate outside their exam, or view files that are not part of their exam)
they should be required to use SEB with the HUJI configuration
To do so, simply select Require the use of Safe Exam Browser with HUJI Exam Browser Keys from the Browser security menu.
Prior to the exam, students should have installed and tested SEB on their laptops according to the instructions under BYOD on the frontpage of Moodle.


Does requiring SEB with HUJI configuration provide sufficient security for BYOD exams?
No! It does not ensure that students are not taking the exam some place else.
It also does not prevent a remote agent controlling students' laptops.
See the next two questions.


How can one ensure that students do not take a BYOD exam some place else?
To ensure that the students do not begin the exam (or take it entirely) some place else:
  • Students are not allowed to enter the exam room after the Opening time
    During the exam, the invigilator makes a note of the student ID shown in the header of the EXAM Moodle window on each laptop.
    It is later checked that no other students took the exam.
    Or...
  • Require password is set.
    The password is announced only after all students have opened SEB and authenticated to EXAM Moodle.
    The time at which the password is announced is noted and it is later checked that no student authenticated after that time.
    (This assumes that students cannot communicate by mobile phone or other device.)
To ensure that students do not continue the exam some place else:
  • When a student wishes to leave the room, the invigilator makes a note of his Student ID and the time.
    The time is later checked against the time that Moodle shows the student submitted.
    Better still, the invigilator checks that Moodle shows the student has submitted.
    Or...
  • A Closing time is set.
    Students are not allowed to leave the room before the Closing time
To ensure that an accomplice does not assist during the exam:
  • It is checked that no student changed IP.


How can I prevent students allowing a remote agent to control their laptops?
You should set Require subnets to EXAM net (exams-test) and instruct students to connect to the exams-test network.
The network is available everywhere on campus. So it doesn't provide a solution to the problem posed in the previous question.
However, the only IP/port it connects with is that of the EXAM Moodle server (http://exam2.cs.huji.ac.il)
So it prevents communication with all other agents.
Note: If there is an image in the quiz instructions, or in any of the questions, that is hosted on another site, it will not be displayed.
(A utility is available to list all links and images in a quiz to external sites.)


What if some students will be taking the exam on workstations and others on their own laptops?
Either set Require subnets to a combination or rooms and WIFIs.
Or create a Moodle group and Group override for just the BYOD students.



Troubleshooting



Why can't a student do his exam?
If a student is thrown out with message Sorry! You do not have an exam scheduled at this time and location, it could be because:
  • Option Active quiz has not been enabled
  • He is not in one of the rooms selected, or his IP is not in the list in section Require subnets
  • The student has not yet started his exam and either more than an hour has elapsed since the quiz Opening time or it is after the Closing time
  • There is a Group override for a group to which he belongs, or he has a User override, which overrides one of the above two items
  • He is not enrolled to the course (or is not registered to an exam in a flex course).
  • If he is trying to review his exams and is not using the exact URL http://exam2.cs.huji.ac.il/review. See next question
Note: During the first few weeks of the semester, if the student does not have an exam at the current time and location, he is redirected to the previous year's EXAM Moodle.
Thus if he does not have an exam in that year's EXAM Moodle either, the message ultimately comes from the previous year's EXAM Moodle.



FAQ



What if a student has more than one exam?
If according to course enrolment (or exam registration for flex courses) and the quiz Opening time and Closing time and Require subnets (and relevant overrides, if any), a student currently has more than one exam at the current time and location, then
  • If he has already started one of the exams, and has not yet finished it, he is taken to it
  • Otherwise, he can chose between the exams


What if Max questions to grade is set and an Essay question was unintentionally answered?
If a grade is given to a later question that was originally marked as Disqualified, it will no longer be considered Disqualified.
However, the unintentionally answered question must be given a grade of zero and both that question and the later one that was originally disqualified will be included in the statistics.
Note 1: Simply adding a comment to a Disqualified question does not change its state.
Note 2: If a grade was given to a disqualified question, the question's original state can be restored by removing the grade and regrading.