Checklist for Proctoring an ExamSoft Assessment

This is what you need to have with you before the assessment begins:

Check that the hard-copy of the assessment does not have "draft" at the top of the page, in the title! If have been given a draft version by mistake, contact the Course Coordinator immediately and ask them to post, then print, which means:

1. Post their assessment electronically
2. Click on the blue Print/Export button
3. Select the proper posting from the drop-down box
4. For "Export Type" select: Exam Taker
5. In the drop-down box, select Scantron Format
6. Click the blue "Print/Export" button

If it is helpful, you can enter the information from above in the space below!

If the assessment is secure, you want to ensure that the assessment environment is sanitized and ready. 

Students are already trained in the appropriate behavior and decorum for assessment time. Here are some points to keep in mind:

At this point, students should be situated in a sterile work space. The room should be quiet. Next:

This phase should be uneventful: You are simply monitoring the students as they complete the assessment. Your priorities are to make sure that there are no incidents of academic misconduct and to address any technical issues that may emerge. 

Unless explicitly directed otherwise by the course coordinator, questions regarding assessment content may not be addressed during the assessment. Instead, direct students to write down any such questions on paper, and ensure that the paper is later delivered to the course coordinator.

Most students will complete the assessment before the allotted time has elapsed. In this case, your role is to ensure that the student has exited and hopefully uploaded their exam file. So for each student:

If a student has run out of time, ExamSoft will automatically end their assessment. Note that the ExamSoft timer and "real-world" time do not always overlap, however.

If a student arrives 30 minutes late for an exam that allots them 60 minutes, the ExamSoft timer will give the student 60 minutes but the student will have to be stopped after 30 minutes. We hope this is a rare situation, but here is the protocol to follow when a student has run out of "real-world" time before ExamSoft time has run out:

There are in general three steps for resolving ExamSoft problems: 

1. The "reboot" procedure works for 99% of problems, but if not, you next...
2. Give the student another device (e.g., back-up laptop). But if all else fails, you...
3. Give the student a hard-copy of the assessment to complete

If you use any of these options, you need to document the incident and report it to the Course Coordinator and the Assistant Dean for Assessment. Provide the Assessment ID, Student Name, and a brief explanation of what happened. 

Remember, NEVER share the Universal Resume Code with a student. When using a URC, you must enter that information directly. 

How to Complete a Full Reboot:

If the Full Reboot Fails: How to Switch the Assessment to Another Device

This procedure assumes that you have another device that has the latest version of SofTest pre-installed on it. The Testing Center has its own computer for this purpose, and during an assessment at WSoP you can call the Chair's Suite for an emergency laptop (which will already be turned on and will be brought directly to you). 

You will first need to authorize an additional download of the exam. While you are performing these steps, have the student log into ExamSoft on the back-up device. 

The student should already be logged into ExamSoft on the back up device you provided, and almost immediately they should see the exam file become available for download. From there, they complete the assessment as normal. 

Sometimes students get confused at how to sign into their account on a backup device. Here are some steps to follow:

Finally, remember that at the end of the assessment, the student who has used a borrowed device needs to:

LAST RESORT: HARD COPY ADMINISTRATION

The steps here are straight-forward:

The student should be instructed to go to the Chair's Suite and request to borrow a laptop. 

If you have elected to sign-out a laptop for your assessment, you should not provide that device to a student who has forgotten their laptop. That device is for students who may have encountered a malfunction on their device, which they remembered to bring with them to the assessment.

If no laptops are available, then provide the student with a hard copy exam. 

Special note for Testing Center administrations:

The Testing Center has a computer available as a back-up. A student who is completing their assessment at the Testing Center, but who has forgotten their laptop, may use the Testing Center computer instead. That is, the student does not need to retrieve a laptop from the Chair's Suite. 

Students are required to have downloaded the exam file to their device prior to assessment time; therefore, if a student does not notice that he/she is missing an exam file until assessment time, it is their own mistake. However, here are some steps you can try to fix the problem:

If these steps do not work, move onto using a back-up device: However, if you cannot find the student name in the Exam Taker tab, to authorize an additional download, this will not work. You will then end up having to use a hard-copy.

Here, the student has started SofTest and entered the password, but the exam will not load. The student may see only a black screen, or the ExamSoft logo. 

If these steps do not work, move onto using a back-up device, and if that fails, use a hard-copy.

This is when a student's laptop breaks down, either before the assessment (for problems during an assessment, see "Mid-Exam Restarts). In this case, you are certain that the laptop is unusable, so a hard-reboot would not be helpful.

If this fails, administer a hard-copy version of the assessment.

For Assessments at the Testing Center:

If you are a proctor at the College's Testing Center, you would simply resort to using the computer with ExamSoft installed upon it. And if that fails, use a hard copy.

The "MER" (mid-exam restart) is the term ExamSoft uses to describe when the application "crashes" after the exam has begun. In most scenarios, the procedure is simple:

About the Timer

For MERs, ExamSoft tries to re-start itself after a crash. This does not always work but when successful, you will see a timer that shows how long the student has been "out" of the assessment. The longer that duration, the more you may suspect academic misconduct. Typically, the timer should be just a few seconds: The app crashes, the student panics and immediately alerts you. But if it is 30 seconds or more, we wonder what the student was doing during that time. So make a note of any MER that shows a timer duration that seems excessive. 

When there is no Timer

Sometimes the MER simply crashes ExamSoft and it cannot restart. The student says that he/she was taking the exam and suddenly it disappeared. In this case try these steps:

About "Lost Work"

In most MER's, no work is lost: After the Universal Resume Code is entered, the assessment resumes exactly where the student left-off. But if that doesn't work, you need to request immediate help. 

It is not uncommon for ExamSoft to "crash" after the student has completed the assessment. In this case, they do not see the yellow screen. 

After the student exits the assessment (shows the Yellow screen), ExamSoft automatically attempts to upload the exam file (which when successful, shows the Green screen). Sometimes the upload will not function as expected. 

Another possibility is that the upload window for this exam has already passed. In this case, you would need to contact the course coordinator to alert them to the problem. 

Students do not need to worry too much about this problem: Once they have seen the Yellow screen, we have a variety of ways of retrieving their exam file. But they must take swift action, because some exams have an "expiration date" (after which the exam file will be erased!).