Chromebook-Exams
In this guide you will find the most important information about planning and conducting online exams with Chromebooks on campus at the University of Konstanz. At some points, we refer to our documentation related to the use of the ILIAS-exams platform. There you will find all relevant information for preparing the content for an ILIAS-exams course.
| Please note: |
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| If you would like to conduct an online exam, please contact the person responsible for exam planning in your department before (!) planning it. The information on this page will help you to estimate the time and resources required for online exams and show you how to do it. The following planning instructions are particularly relevant for you, if a 'paper exam' that has already been planned is to be subsequently rescheduled into an online exam, or if there is no central exam planning in the department. |
Please note that, as for conventional exams, you as a teacher are responsible for the organizational implementation of the exam. Please clarify with your department how you can receive support for your exam concerning room reservation, and how a subsequent change request of room reservations can be implemented. The KIM will assist you by providing Chromebooks and infrastructure for your online exam. The following will tell you where, in turn, the KIM may need your assistance in this process.
1. Scheduling Chromebook exams
For scheduling and reserving, we recommend the following steps, which also builds the structure of this article:
- Determine the time needed to complete the exam and add the additional time needed for handing out and collecting the devices and informing the participants.
- Clarify the availability of assisting staff (e.g. student assistants).
- Decide which exam rooms you want to use.
- Check the availability of the exam rooms.
- Confirm the availability of Chromebooks for your preferred date.
- Reserve the exam rooms through the room scheduling department.
- Confirm the sccesful reservation of the exam rooms to us.
1.1. Time planning
When calculating the total duration of the exam, please take into account the time required for:
- Handing out of the Chromebooks (approx. 5 minutes if handed out individually; approx. 15 minutes if Chromebooks are distributed to the seats).
- Informing the exam participants (approx. 5 minutes)
- Actual Time to work on the exercices
- Collecting the Chromebooks (approx. 0-5 minutes if they are handed in when leaving the room; approx. 15 minutes if Chromebooks are collected).
The time required is largely determined by the distribution procedure of the Chromebooks in the exam rooms and the number of people assisting. Therefore, you should first decide how the Chromebooks will be handed out. We would like to show you two examples below, which might be suitable:
| Example 1: Drop off Chromebooks at the entrance, one time slot, use one of our recommended rooms in R, M6 or P6 |
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Total time required: 105 minutes, time reserved at room scheduling department: 90 minutes, here from 10:00 - 11:30 a.m.
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| Example 2: Distribution of Chromebooks to seats, two time slots, use of a room not recommended by us. |
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* (9:00): Helpers organized by you will pick up the Chromebook cabinets in the entrance area of the N library and bring them to your exam room
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1.2. Assistance
KIM staff can provide you with the Chromebooks directly in the particularly suitable rooms in the R-building, as well as on M6 and P6, in time at the beginning of the breaks (see below). If you would like to use the Chromebooks in other parts or university buildings (please see our overview of suitable rooms in the following section), you will have to organize and carry out the transport of the Chromebook cabinets with your own personnel (e.g. by student assistants). We will then hand over the cabinets to you at the entrance the N Library. Please note that transport times may be significantly extended, due to the use of freight elevators. Based on experience, you should plan at least 45 minutes total for the transport of four Chromebook cabinets across the university with four people (our recommendation). Transporting the cabinets via ramps will require two (strong) people per cabinet due to the heavy weight of the cabinets. Transporting the cabinets over cobblestones is not permitted.
If you choose to distribute the Chromebooks to seats before students arrive, you should plan for enough helpers to distribute them: you will need about four helpers to distribute 100 Chromebooks to the seats in a (large) lecture hall within 10 minutes.
You will need about the same number to receive the Chromebooks at the end of the exam. The following procedure has proven successful: The participants are informed before the exam, that they are only allowed to leave the exam room at certain exits, where they hand in the Chromebook to one (!) person designated by you in advance. This person will receive the Chromebooks and place them on a table (request it from housekeeping if necessary), from which other assistants will distribute the Chromebooks to the cabinets. For large lecture halls, the supervising person should keep an eye on all exits and make sure no devices are stolen.
Since the Chromebooks are distributed among four cabinets, you can also distribute them among multiple rooms. However, to avoid damage in transit, do not remove Chromebooks from the cabinets and transport them individually to other rooms. Please make sure that there are enough people in all rooms to help you distribute and collect the devices.
1.3 Recommended exam rooms
We recommend using the following rooms for Chromebook exams, as we can provide Chromebooks directly to you there:
- Lecture halls in the R-building
- Seminar rooms on P6
- Seminar rooms on M6
During the exam period at the end of the semester (approximately two weeks before and four weeks after the end of the lecture period), we can provide you with up to 128 Chromebooks in four mobile cabinets in the exam rooms there on the desired dates. Since only a part of the room capacity can be used, due to the spacing between participants usually required for exams, it may happen that several rooms are needed at the same time for large exams. Therefore, it may be necessary to adjust the exam date to accommodate room availability.
If you do not (can not) use the rooms mentioned above, you will find here an overview of all rooms suitable for online exams. Please note that for the rooms marked with 'no' there, you will have to organize and carry out the transport of the Chromebooks yourself.
| Room | Places | Type | Chromebook delivery by the KIM | ! Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| locked. | ||||
| R712 | 243 | Lecture hall Bio/Ch | yes | |
| R711 | 242 | Lecture hall Ph | yes | |
| locked | ||||
| R513 | 177 | lecture hall Math. | yes | |
| R611 | 168 | Lecture hall Ch | yes | |
| M629 | 150 | Lecture hall | yes | |
| locked | ||||
| D434 | 112 | seminar room | no | |
| locked | ||||
| locked | ||||
| C336 | 100 | seminar room | no | |
| C425 | 100 | seminar room | no | |
| E404 | 100 | Seminar room | no | |
| G300 | 100 | Seminar room | no | |
| C230 | 90 | Seminar room | no | |
| R512 | 84 | Physics lecture room | yes | |
| R511 | 79 | Bio/Ch lecture hall | yes | |
| P603 | 69 | Lecture hall | ja | |
| M627 | 68 | Exper. Lecture Hall | ||
| G309 | 60 | Seminar room | no | |
| C423 | 54 | Seminar room | no | |
| ZT1202 | 54 | Seminar room | no | |
| M628 | 52 | Exper.lecture room | yes | |
| P1138 | 50 | Seminar room | no | |
| D432 | 48 | Seminar room | no | |
| M630 | 47 | Seminar room | no | |
| F426 | 46 | Seminar room | no | |
| G307 | 46 | Seminar room | no | |
| G421 | 46 | Seminar room | no | |
| Y311 | 46 | Seminar room | no | |
| C427 | 42 | Seminar room | no | |
| F429 | 36 | Seminar room | no | |
| D436 | 34 | Seminar room | no | |
| E403 | 34 | Seminar room | no | |
| G308 | 34 | Seminar room | no | |
| D522 | 32 | Seminar room | no | |
| ML630 | 32 | Seminar room | no | |
| D247 | 30 | Seminar room | no | |
| F428 | 30 | Seminar room | no | |
| M901 | 29 | Seminar room | no | |
| G306 | 28 | Seminar room | no | |
| H308 | 28 | Seminar room | no | |
| H309 | 28 | Seminar room | no | |
| M701 | 28 | Seminar room | no | |
| G304 | 26 | Seminar room | no | |
| L829 | 26 | Seminar room | no | |
| F423 | 24 | Seminar room | no | |
| M631 | 24 | Seminar room | yes | |
| P812 | 24 | Seminar room | no | |
| P912 | 24 | Seminar room | no | |
| Z1003 | 24 | Seminar room | no | |
| C426 | 18 | Seminar room | no | |
| D435 | 18 | Seminar room | no | |
| M801 | 18 | Seminar room | no | |
| M1001 | 18 | Seminar room | no | |
| M1101 | 18 | Seminar room | no | |
| G302 | 16 | Seminar room | no | |
| P1012 | 16 | Seminar room | no |
1.4. Check room availability
Here you can check if the rooms you would like to use are available (no registration required!).
| Overview of current room occupancy: |
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| http://134.34.26.182/roomresrrm/ |
1.5. Chromebook request and reservation
| Please submit a reservation request for a Chromebook exam using this form: |
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| https://www.kim.uni-konstanz.de/lehren/beratung-hilfsmittel-service/digital-unterstuetzte-lehre/formular-chromebook-klausuren/ |
We will check and confirm you the Chromebook reservation, if enough devices are available for the day in question, create an exam course on the ILIAS-exams platform, and provide you with access information.
Only then, as described in the following section, please reserve the room(s) at the room scheduling department!
If there is not enough equipment available, you will receive alternative date suggestions from us. Please proceed as described in section 4 to determine room availability, please additionally consult the room scheduling department in case of problems. Then please inform us about the new date and the new room, we will create an ILIAS-exam course for you and give you your access information.
1.6. Reservation of rooms
If you cannot or do not want to use the rooms that might be already reserved for you by your department (within the scope of the usual event planning of the departments), please clarify with your department first, whether they can reserve the rooms you want for you - or how room reservation requests for online exams are to be registered at your department in future. If this is not currently possible, please reserve the rooms you would like to use directly via e-mail at the room scheduling department after you have convinced yourself of the availability, as described in point 1.4:
| Room reservation via e-mail |
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| Lehrraumvergabe@uni-konstanz.de |
2. Preparing the exam
2.1 Preparing exam course
Chromebook exams can only be conducted in connection with an exam course on the ILIAS-exams server. Detailed instructions, as well as exam legal information, on how to conduct online exams with ILIAS can be found here:
https://www.uni-konstanz.de/en/teaching/advice-aid-resources-service/digitally-enhanced-teaching/
Attention: In the course of the summer semester 2023 we will adjust the configuration of the ILIAS-exams server in such a way that during a Chromebook exam, the exam server is exclusively accessible via Chromebooks. In this time slot no preparational work or reconfiguration of exams from other devices is possible. If you still need to access the administration interface during the exam, please use one of the Chromebooks provided to do so.
2.2. Mock exam
If you or the participants in your course have not yet taken a test on the ILIAS-exams platform, we strongly(!) recommend that you conduct a trial exam:
- Students can familiarize themselves with the registration process (making sure they know their account name with password) and learn how to find, start, edit and complete the exam course. Students who have not yet used ILIAS-exams platform must also complete the profile completion required when registering for ILIAS-exams platform for the first time.
- Teachers should test the function of the selected configuration in the test exam: Please check whether your settings for the availability and access period and the processing time work (including the settings for compensation for disadvantages!). Also test all desired question types, the scoring of the answers (especially for multiple-choice questions) and (if desired) the functioning of the grading scheme.
The mock exam does not necessarily require the use of Chromebooks: no special knowledge is required, as the Chromebooks automatically connect to the ILIAS-exams platform, when started. We therefore recommend that you only use Chromebooks for a mock exam, if you want to check the reliability of the WiFi signal on site - and/or you want to specifically practice all the necessary procedures with your staff, and have already reserved rooms for this purpose.
Please communicate your preferred date for a mock exam well in advance via email: ilias-support@uni-konstanz.de. If you would like to conduct the mock exam with Chromebooks, please schedule and reserve them as described in section 1.5. Due to limited room and equipment availability, there can be no mock exams on Chromebooks during the end-of-semester examination period.
2.3. ILIAS-exam final check
Be sure to have made a final check to your ILIAS exam, to ensure that the test is accessible for the students in ILIAS on the day of the exam. This also includes a check whether all questions and the marking scheme have been entered correctly. We are happy to carry out this final check together with you. Please use this checklist as a guide for your final check:
Checklist for the final inspection of ILIAS exams
3. Conduct exam
Security guidelines for Chromebook exams
- The use of any other digital device or handheld (phone, smartwatch etc.) must be strictly prohibited.
- A password for the online-test on the ILIAS exam platform has to be set.
- The test password must not be announced before the start of the exam.
- The test password may only be announced on site in the exam room.
- Students should not be allowed to leave the exam room before the end of the writing time.
3.1. Providing the Chromebooks
This process is already described above in section 1 & 2. You only have to worry about the transport of the devices to your exam room(s), if you do not use one of the rooms we recommend (see section 1.3). In this case, the Chromebook cabinets will be handed over to you at the reception desk of the N-Library the time you specified in your Chromebook reservation. Depending on the distance, you will need to allow up to 45 minutes for the transport with up to four helpers. The same amount of time and staff will be required to return the cabinets after the exam is finished.
If you use one of the rooms recommended, this does not apply. We will make sure the Chromebook cabinets are available outside the rooms at the beginning of your exam time slot.
For the subsequent transport of the cabinets to the room, we ask for your assistance: the cabinets should be placed near the entrance with the doors opened.
3.2. Handing out the Chromebooks
- If you have chosen to place the Chromebooks on top of the tables, we will assist your supervisor or assistants distributing the devices around the room.
- If you would like to give out the devices on entering the room, the exam supervisor will guide the participants to the Chromebook cabinets, where the devices are handed over.
Please plan in advance who will carry out these tasks and inform your staff well in advance.
3.3 Informing students about the procedure
Before the exam begins, inform students of the procedures. For a Chromebook exam, the following additional information must be given here:
- Login: With firstname.lastname and the account password. If you have set an additional password for the exam, give it out that as well.
- Interruptions: Advise students that if they go to the restroom, they should close the Chromebook halfway (so that the exam time count in ILIAS is correct and no one can see the screen contents) and give you a notice.
- Help with technical problems: Advise students that if they have technical problems, they cannot solve themselves, they should make notice immediately for assistance (through us or your support staff). Log these instances, noting the time, description of the problem, and how it was solved, also noting the time.
- Ending the Test: Advise students that if they want to turn in their online exam they have to end the exam by clicking "End Test", so that they will not be able to take the test after.
- Returning Devices: Inform students to whom and at at which exit the devices can be returned. Point out that the room can only be left, when a Chromebook is handed over.
3.4 Keeping a log
If students experience technical problems while taking the exam, please record the following information to the log: time, student number, Chromebook number, time, type of problem, solution if applicable.
3.5 Using the Chromebooks
The Chromebooks are pre-configured in such a way, that they automatically connect to the WiFi on start, open the web browser and display the login page of the ILIAS-exams platform. There, students can log in with their university account name (usually firstname.lastname) and the corresponding password. After logging in, they will see their dashboard and find the link to their exam.
3.6 Support for technical problems
At least one person of the KIM E-Learning team will be present at the beginning of the exam, to assist with any questions or technical issues. You will be given a phone number to reach this person during your exam for immediate assistance.
3.7 Collecting the Chromebooks
We will assist you at the end of the exam collecting the Chromebooks. The following distribution of tasks has proven effective in this regard:
- one person constantly watches the room and makes sure no one leaves via the side exits.
- one person is exclusively responsible for collecting the Chromebooks at the respective "drop-off" location.
- multiple people pick up the Chromebooks there and distribute them to the mobile cabinets. The first part of the Chromebook number indicates the cabinet to which the Chromebook is assigned to. If a large number of Chromebooks are returned in a short period of time, they can also be temporarily stored on top of the cabinets before being sorted into the drawers. Please make sure that each Chromebook is sorted in correctly (cabinet, drawer number). It is not necessary to connect the Chromebooks to the charging cables in the cabinet.
3.8. Removal of mobile Chromebook cabinets
The transport of the chromebook cabinets, when being removed, is to be caried out the same way as described above (in section 3.1): if the exam was conducted in rooms we recommend, the KIM team will take care of the removal of the cabinets; otherwise, please return the cabinets immediately to the N-Library reception desk with your team.
4. Evaluation, post-exam review, make-up dates
Please refer to the information provided on our homepage and on the wiki pages.
Further documentation is only available in German for now: how to set up On Campus exams in ILIAS and instructions and documentation on how to use the ILIAS-exams platform.