How to conduct online or offline exams

How to Conduct Online or Offline Exams?

The visibility of computer based environment is more cherishable by teachers and students in the current decade.

I am not a teacher but I love this profession from my childhood itself and always think of innovative style for teaching. In this article, I want to share information about conducting computer based exams (both online and offline).

What is online exam?

The term “online exam” may be quite popular for IT people and may not be familiar among teachers or students new to computer / internet. The software which is used to conduct exams over network (internet/local network) is called “online exam software”.

Moving traditional paper based into software with centralized server architecture model is known as “online exam”. In this case a centralized machine with server and database environment will manage all exam activities across network. Exam taker can access the software by web browsers without installing any software on their machine.

What is offline exam?We can also have an option to conduct exams by “offline exam software”, which can be an independent desktop application that needs to be installed on each exam takers’ systems. In this case, each exam machine will act independently and it will not be connected to the centralized server.

There are tons of software tools available on the internet; choosing the best product is always good in terms of quality and price. I personally recommend “Skill Evaluation Lab” for online exams and “Test Generator Lab” for offline exams. These products are developed by global skill development and skill evaluation leader.

How to conduct Online Exam by using Skill Evaluation Lab?

Step 1: Understand the product featuresIt is always good practice to know the product features before start using; here is a quick

video about this product.

Watch this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36gIVQqucqM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36gIVQqucqM


The Skill Evaluation Lab can be accessed anywhere on the world at http://www.onlineexamlab.com.

Click “Take a free trial Register Now!” button and enter your details. The approval process is automatic and your account will be live instantly to conduct exams.

Step 2: Register and setup your exam manager account


Step 3: Create question bankOnce you logged on to the application, you can find nicely organized menu structure on

left side like Plan, Prove, and Assess. They call PPA-2 (Plan, Prove, Assess) as the assessment methodology and PPA-1 (Plan, Practize, Achieve) as the learning methodology. I am not sure they have registered patent rights for such a nice methodology they introduced for assessment.


Step 3: Create question bankClick Prove – Question Management and add your questions one by one with your

subject areas. The question editor will have an option to add images, flash files, audio, video or any resource files. It is beyond the scope of this article to explain all those stuffs.


Step 4: Create Test

The test is nothing but your real question paper with timer and other stuffs. You just click Test Management and create tests with various configurable options like random option, timer, expiry date…etc. Now click the edit action to associate questions to this test.


Step 5: Create Exam Takers

The next step would be to create student profiles to attend test. The process is straightforward on User Management page. Just select Trainee/Examinee role while creating exam taker profile. You can read the user manual about these roles from Skill Evaluation Lab.


Step 6: Create Groups and Associate Users

Grouping users into a group will be more useful for your exam management tasks. Just click Group Management and create a group. The next page will guide you to associate users into this group.


Step 7: Associate Test to GroupClick Group Management and click Associate/De-associate Test button to associate test

to this group. Now you are ready to host your exam online.


Step 8: Publish Test to conduct your exam online

Click Test Management and publish test. Now your exam takers can logon and attend the test by clicking Prove – Take tests page.


Step 9: Generate reportsOnce your exam takers completed their exams, click Assess – Assess All to generate

results.

The product has many charting and reporting options to improve college/school results and it is hard to explain all those in single article.

How to conduct Offline Exam by using Test Generator Lab?

Step 1: Understand the product features

This is simple by watching this quick video tour.

Watch this video: http://youtube.com/v/ZWGnRc9xick


Step 2: Download and install Test Generator LabThe product is more popular on many download sites, but it is recommended to download at publisher site. Download product from the below URL:http://www.epractizelabs.com/online-test/offline-exam-software.html

Installation is simple by clicking on the downloaded setup file. The vendor currently offers Windows based installer only and I am not sure whether they have planned to release installer for MAC/Linux.


Step 3: Create profile at Test Generator LabThe process does not require internet connection since the action will save data on your system. Click New User link and create user profile.

Step 4: Create Test

Login with the user details and click Generate Test(s). Here the process is reverse unless like Skill Evaluation Lab you need to create Test first before adding questions.


Step 5: Create TopicsThe wizard already have navigation tap with step message (Step 1, Step 2…). Once you creates test, you need to add Topics for this test.


Step 6: Create QuestionsAdd questions with question editor or by XL & Word Documents. The product comes with 6 different questions types to tests any kind skills including coding knowledge by select the best option or drag and drop question type.

Step 7: Publish/Export test

Click “Publish Test” to take test on your Take Test page or Export Test to download test file for distribution to other systems.


Step 8: Load test on each exam taker’s Test Generator LabThe test file exported on Step 5 can be loaded on any Test Generator Lab from Load Test menu. The great thing about this product it s free for taking test, so you can have any number of Test Generator Lab clients on your school/college to conduct exams.

Thanks for reading my article. Please share your feedback.

How to conduct online or offline exams

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