Digital Exams

TU Graz offers many different ways of holding digital exams. A dedicated part of the statutes on virtual teaching and online exams clarifies what is permitted.

TeachCenter Exam

For online exams, the Educational Technology unit runs a dedicated TeachCenter instance: the TeachCenter Exam.

Like the main TeachCenter, the TeachCenter Exam is linked to registrations in TUGRAZonline. The difference: instead of course registrations, it synchronises registrations for exam dates. Examiners can create and manage exam courses on their own.

You can then fill the exam course according to your exam conditions. Should students solve a task and upload their solution as a file? Or would you prefer a classic quiz activity with question types ranging from multiple choice and cloze texts to complex mathematical tasks (STACK)? To make collaboration during the exam harder, the quiz activity can also work with random questions.

Exams and exam questions can also be imported from other exam courses (for example from past exams).

To make sure the right points and grades come out in the end, it pays to look at grading while you are still creating the exam. Exams can be graded online, and grades can be exported directly to TUGRAZonline.

To help students find their way around the TeachCenter Exam, you can recommend the guide written specifically for students ahead of the exam. Our course “Test your exam” is also worth recommending: students can work through the different question types and get a feel for the platform before the exam. Teachers can use “Test your exam” just as well to explore the technical possibilities.

If you only want to use the TeachCenter (Exam) to manage exam questions but still hold the exam on paper in the lecture hall, you can use the Exam Printer to print TeachCenter exams (quiz activity). Our TELucation article on the Exam Printer and the Exam Printer guide show how this works.

Guides and articles

Other exam platforms

Besides the TeachCenter Exam, TU Graz offers two more tools for managing, holding and supporting exams digitally.

KnowledgeCheckR can take photos of students at random moments during a classic online exam (with various question types). After the exam, examiners can review the photos and check for irregularities. The tool also offers an online chat during the exam.

Gradescope, on the other hand, supports the digital management and grading of written exams on paper. Completed exam sheets are scanned, similar answers are grouped using automated handwriting recognition and can be graded faster. It also offers features that make grading by several people more objective.

Supervision

Supervision is a critical issue for digital exams that do not take place in a lecture hall or seminar room. TU Graz provides the two video conferencing systems Webex and BigBlueButton for this – see the guide on online exams with Webex and BigBlueButton.

You can also use the Safe Exam Browser for exams – special software that keeps students from leaving the digital exam environment.

Exam review

For ideas on how the review of digital exams can be organised, see our guide on exam review.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

AI has also become more relevant for digital exams. Our TELucation articles on using AI in teaching offer several ways of dealing with it. The current legal framework and recommendations are available in TU4U.