Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

An examination using an answer-selection approach comprises various different types of questions which all have one thing in common – to answer a question, one or several answer(s) have to be selected from the options which are given. Various types of questions may be included, such as: multiple-choice (MC), single-choice (SC), questions involving matching or putting things in order and cloze tests with a list of options to choose from. MC is often used as an umbrella term for all of these types of questions.

As a matter of principle, for every examination, attention should be paid to constructive alignment (see Lit. tips) which assumes a correlation between the learning objectives, teaching and the examinations. In short, the students need to learn the subject matter that will be in the examinations. If there is a strong emphasis on knowledge transfer in the lectures, but only factual knowledge is required in the examination, then it is above all factual knowledge that will be learned. When using MC questions the transparency of the examined knowledge level is especially important because students often assume that MC questions "only" test factual knowledge.

Formulating good questions is the real challenge when setting digital examinations. This includes, for example, the right structure of the questions, avoiding giving clues to the solutions and determining mark allocation appropriately. Further literature and guidelines are available on this subject (see below). Overall, the formulation of questions is more time-consuming than with conventional examinations; however, this is more than compensated for by much faster marking times.

In principle, almost all levels of knowledge – from the simple reproduction of knowledge to knowledge transfer and even evaluation tasks – can be examined if the questions are designed appropriately. This does not mean that every examination should be set using MC questions. The question format depends on its suitability for the learning objectives and the subject matter in question. Mixed examination formats are often a good solution.

An important prerequisite for legally compliant online examinations is that they are anchored in the examination regulations. For one thing, examinations using the answer-selection procedure must be permitted. For examinations at stationary or mobile end devices, the electronic examination must have been adopted as an examination format in the examination regulations.

The students who are to be examined must be informed in good time about the format of the examination and about any particular organisational issues. This rules out the examination being completed on a keyboard rather than with a pen and paper as grounds for complaint. It also makes it easier to take any special cases into account, such as particular physical impairments. It is recommended that mock examination papers are made available.

To ensure that everything runs smoothly, it is important, especially for examinations on stationary or mobile end devices, that the examination is planned in good time, i.e. clarification of dates, times and rooms at the beginning of the semester. Furthermore, when setting electronic examinations (not scanned-in examinations), there will always need to be some technical support in the examination room as well as the usual invigilators; in certain cases this can be provided by the ZQS/elsa.

Examinations are taken on a separate, specially-secured ILIAS installation. During the examination, ILIAS is run in the so-called SafeExamBrowser which only grants access to the authorised test. 

Entries are continuously saved during the test. If one computer fails, the examination can immediately be resumed on another computer.