ILIAS/Instructions/Configuring online exams on-campus in ILIAS

This is a guide on how to configure online exams (suitable for Chromebook exams, bwLehrpool exams and Bring Your Own Device exams).

If you have already booked your online exam, an ILIAS course has been set up for this on the ILIAS exams platform.

• All important information on planning and booking Chromebook exams can be found here.
• All important information on planning and booking bwLehrpool exams can be found here.
• All important information on planning and booking Bring Your Own Device exams can be found here.

If you have any questions, please contact us: ilias-support@uni-konstanz.de

1. Organizational matters

1.1 Availability of the exam

The ILIAS exam course set up for you should be available for your participants on the planned date. However, the exam title should also be displayed on their dashboard outside this period - this confirms their registration.

To do this, make the following settings:

1.2. Contents of your exam

Your exam course is equipped with these exam modules as shown here:

1. In an Online-Test, you set your exam questions, which the participants answer directly here.
2. The essay or Long Text Task is suitable for tasks with long answer texts in which you can make corrections directly.
3. In the module for Assignment download & document upload, your participants can download exam documents provided by you and upload their answers/solutions. (This module is not suitable for Chromebook exams and Bring Your Own Device exams).

Please delete the modules that you do not need for your exam so that your participants are only shown the modules they need to work on:

1.3. Administering exams and tests

If you would like other people from your working group to help prepare the test, you can add them as follows:

2. Online-Test

Here you will find instructions on how to use the test object for your exam. The test object is suitable for all questions that are answered by your participants directly in the browser.

2.1 Settings

These default settings in the online test must remain as they are so that the exam can run smoothly:

2.1.1. Availability, writing time, test password

In the "Settings" tab of the online test, you can define important settings to ensure that the exam runs smoothly. Configure these settings to suit your exam scenario:

Important: In the "Administering the Test: Test Run" section, check the "Limit Duration of Test" box and enter the length of time you have planned in for the online test. Only with this setting

• the participants are shown their remaining working time throughout the test

• the test is terminated by the server at the end of your specified writing time and the last entry of each participant is automatically saved as an authorized answer

Without this setting, the test is NOT automatically closed even after the time has expired, the participants do not see that the time has expired and can continue to work on the current question. They are only confronted with the fact that the end of the test has been reached when they switch to the next question or end the test: with an error message. This causes confusion - and it can be unclear which questions have been answered in time.

Please note:	• the availability period on the start page of the exam course
	• the period of availability in the test (if assigned by you)
	• the period of time set for the test in the section "Administering the Test: Access"
	must be longer than the before mentioned writing time!

If, for example, the availability period of the entire exam lasts only 60 minutes with a writing time of 60 minutes, then

• the participants (by registering and opening the test) do not have the full 60 minutes at their disposal
• the test or exam course will be closed automatically at the end of the availability period and the participants receive system error messages (although the remaining writing time displayed has not yet expired).

2.1.2. Compensation for disadvantage

If you have participants entitled to a writing time extension as part of a compensation for disadvantages, you can only make the necessary settings #7. During the test or exam . We will be happy to assist you with this. If you would like to make the settings yourself, you will find instructions here.

2.2. Content

2.2.1. Question types

You can find an introduction to possible question types in your online test here: Fragetypen in ILIAS (in German)

2.2.2. Essay question

For open-ended questions, use the question type "Essay Question".

Please note:

• The essay question type is most suitable for relatively short answers (up to about 5 sentences).
• The essay question type can also be used for longer answers. However, we recommend creating several individual essay questions with shorter answer texts instead of question with a longer answer text. (Background: It is not possible to make comments or notes on individual text passages during the correction, but only to provide final feedback on the entire answer. With a shorter answer text, this feedback is more specific).
• For questions that require longer answers that are to be subdivided and formatted, and then corrected directly in the text, the "Langtext-Aufgabe" (long text essay task) is better suited than the essay question (see section 3.). We will be happy to advise you on this (ilias-support@uni-konstanz.de).

2.2.3. Adding questions to the test

There are three options for adding questions to your test:

A) Create questions directly in the test

B) Collect and manage questions in one or several question pool(s) and include them in the test according to certain criteria

C) Insert questions from another (already existing) test

2.2.3.1. Option A: Create questions directly in the test

You can create new questions directly in your test like this:

Please note:

Negative points are permitted and common procedure to avoid or minimize random hits. However, the final result of a question may never be less than 0 points - it is not permitted to carry over minus points beyond the actual question. This is preset in the standard settings of your test.

2.2.3.2. Option B: Create question pools

The benefits of question pools:

1. You can collect and manage as many questions as you like in one or more question pools in the long run - e.g. according to content criteria. In the written test, you can obtain questions from numerous question pools. You can reuse the questions in question pools in several tests.
2. You have the option of categorizing questions with taxonomies. For example, you can create a thematic taxonomy and then add subordinate nodes "easy", "medium", "difficult".
3. You can add comments to individual questions. This makes it easier to work on question pools together. You can find instructions here (in German).

Question pools are not visible to the participants.

How to create a question pool:

Please note:

• Questions that you have created directly in a test can also be moved to a question pool later on.
• If you edit a question directly in the test that you had previously created in the question pool, you will receive a message after the change that the changed question has been created as a copy of your original question. You can answer with "Yes" or "No" whether you want to transfer your change to the original question in the question pool.
• If you delete a question directly in the test, it will still be available in the question pool. To delete a question permanently, remove it from the question pool.

2.2.3.3. Option C: Adding questions from another test

Here you can see how to add questions from another test:

2.2.4. Navigating in the test

Here you can see how to edit or reposition questions later:

2.2.5. Defining mark steps

The grade overview is displayed after the exam under "Results" and "Statistics".

You can also adjust the grading scheme after the exam - as far as the examination regulations allow.

However, the pre-condition for this is that in the "Settings" tab of the test under "Scoring and Results"

- either the "Access to Test Results" option is deactivated

- or a date has been set here that has not yet been reached.

2.2.6. A trial run

After completing your test, it is advisable to check whether the test runs and the results are evaluated as you planned, or whether you need to make any corrections in the test settings or within the individual questions.

To do this, the test must be online (in the "Settings" tab). You can then start the test as a test (in the "Info" tab).

Please note:

After each test run (even after "trial tests"), "results" or "test data" are generated. These results must be deleted before you can continue editing the test (in order to change settings, edit questions again or add new questions). Otherwise this error message will appear at this point:

3. Essay assignment (Langtext-Aufgabe)

The long text essay task is a new feature in ILIAS. The long text task object can already be used very well in the current version, but is currently undergoing rapid development. For this reason, you will not yet find detailed instructions on how to use this object type. If you would like to use the long text task, we will be happy to advise you and, if necessary, guide you through the individual options. Simply write a short email to ilias-support@uni-konstanz.de.

4. Assignment download & document upload

4.1. Einstellungen

These default settings must NOT be changed in the 'Assignment download & document upload' module:

This is how you make your settings in the 'Assignment download & document upload' module:

4.2. Providing exam document(s)

4.3. The participants' view

The view of your participants during the current exam is shown here.

Please note: Before the exam starts, you cannot access this page using the "Show Member View" option, as the module is not yet available for your participants at this time.

4.4. View of the test managers

Here is your view as the person responsible for the exam during the current examination:

You can find instructions on how to correct, grade and view grades for Take Home Exam here (in German).

5. Participants

This is how you add the participants who have registered for your exam via ZEuS to your exam course:

You can find instructions for exporting from ZEuS here.

6. Final check - is everything set correctly?

Finally, please check that the essential settings are set correctly so that the exam can run smoothly. We recommend that you check this together with us - using this Checklist.

7. During the test or exam

During the exam, you can follow the progress of the participants in the online test. It is not necessary to make any further settings - apart from the following special cases:

1. For participants with compensation for disadvantages, the writing time can only be extended during the ongoing exam.
2. During the exam, it turns out that it makes sense to extend the writing time for all participants.

We will be happy to help you with this. If you would like to make the settings for the time extension yourself, you will find a guide here.

Please note that any technical problems that occur have to be documented in a test protocol.

8. Evaluation

8.1 Automatic evaluation

If your test consists exclusively of questions for which you have specified answer options and points to be achieved in advance, ILIAS will evaluate the exam automatically. In this case, you will receive the results overview in the "Results" tab - including the name, number of points achieved and grade - according to the evaluation scheme you have specified.

8.2. Evaluating manually

8.3. Post-correction

Do you realize after the exam that you made a mistake assigning points to a question?

Or that you did not formulate a question clearly enough, as a result of which it was not sufficiently understood by many participants, and therefore not answered appropriately?

The scoring of this question distorts the results of the entire exam and you would like to reduce this distortion (e.g. by awarding fewer points to the question in question). In the "Corrections" tab, you can

• change, remove or add points to the answer options of a question
• change, remove or add individual answer options for a question
• review a summary of answers given for each question and, if necessary, remove any manual scores that have already been created.

Important:

• Not all question types have the option of post-correction, and some can only be partially corrected, i.e. you can change the points for existing answers for all of them, but it is not possible to add further, new answer options afterwards (e.g. ordering question and matching question).
• Subsequent corrections and manual corrections should only be made by one person at a time. If several people are working on the correction at the same time and the saving time overlaps, not all corrections can be saved for technical reasons.

8.4. Exporting the results

This is how you can create an overall results document in an Excel spreadsheet:

8.5. Transferring grades to ZEuS

There is a tool for transferring grades from ILIAS tests to ZEuS. Please proceed as follows:

The above mentioned tool including information about it can be found on the following page:

https://de.zeus-wiki.uni-konstanz.de/wiki/ZEuS-Wiki:EXA_PM_StudISAdmin_TransformationNotenlisten_ILIAS_ZEuS

The link to the tool can be found in the section "Lösung".

9. Post-exam review

You need to make various settings in your online exam before making a post-review:

9.1. Exam course (main page) | Settings:

Section "Availability":

• Adjust the time period for the post-exam review (exam course must be online for reviewing)

Screenshot:

9.2. Online-Test | Settings | General:

Section "Availability":

• Adjust time period (if assigned by you for the exam) to the exam review (test must be online for reviewing)

Section "Administering the Test: Access":

• The end of this period must be before the exam review

Screenshot:

9.3. Online-Test | Settings| Scoring and Results:

Sections "Summary Test Results" and "Further Details to be Included in Test Results":

necessary (red) and individually desired (green) settings for the exam review:

With the settings set like this, the results for the participants are displayed as follows:

Contact us

If you have any questions about your exam and the individual functions in ILIAS, please do not hesitate to contact us:

ilias-support@uni-konstanz.de

We wish you and your participants the best of luck for your online test or exam.

Your E-Learning team