Conducting digital examinations
All examinations must be guided or supervised by examiners. The examiners look after the students technically and in terms of content in the event of problems and questions during the examination. As an examiner, you must keep an examination protocol in which you document any unusual occurrences (e.g. technical faults, suspected cheating). Immediately after the examination, you upload this protocol to the examination course and store it there "invisibly" for students. Then set the examination course to invisible.
Digital examinations in presence
Digital face-to-face examinations take place under supervision in a PC pool. In terms of supervision, they do not differ from a paper-and-pencil examination. Nevertheless, there are differences to analogue examinations due to the use of information and communication technologies. These relate primarily to the use of standardised technology that is not equally familiar to all examinees, to unfamiliar premises, to a PC configuration tailored to the examination, and to an ambience (noise, seating arrangement) that differs from that of teaching or paper-and-pencil examinations.
Digital examinations at a distance
Examinations at a distance can be conducted with or without remote supervision. Remote supervision may be more resource-intensive than on-site (digital) examinations, as the ratio of examiners to the number of students to be supervised must be lower when video conferencing software is used in order to ensure a "fair" supervisory function by means of a camera (section).
Equal opportunities in a distance examination
Under examination law, there is a requirement for equal opportunities for all examinees. For these reasons, supervision is carried out to prevent the use of unauthorised aids or the exchange of information between examinees. In a distance examination, this cannot be guaranteed in the same way due to the existing information and communication technologies. It is therefore necessary to reduce attempts at cheating in a distance examination by means of various measures:
- continuous video supervision (image and sound) [room surveillance and room scanning are prohibited, § 96 a, para. 2]
- randomised arrangement of tasks (order of tasks)
- randomised selection of tasks (task pool)
- more complex task formats that make random answers or easy finding of a solution on the internet difficult
- if necessary, the installation of a Safe Exam Browser.
Equal opportunities, however, also include sufficient technical equipment, which can be provided on loan if necessary. Otherwise, the right to choose makes it possible to switch to another form of examination offered anyway.
Attempted cheating
If an examiner suspects that a candidate is cheating during the examination, this is noted in the examination protocol and reported to the responsible examination board. The examination board examines the suspicion on the basis of the available documents (examination performance, protocol). Within 180 days of the examination date, it can also request the Moodle administration (e-pruefungen-support@hu-berlin.de) to provide the stored server data.
In the case of a remote supervision examination, recording of the audio/video transmission is also prohibited in the case of suspicion!