Remote University Examination Platform

The University of Basel decided to take a significant step towards modernisation and implement a system giving the students of its Medical Faculty the possibility of sitting exams remotely. BeAxi: Web provides the university with an online platform for remote examinations of different types.

Platform:

Web

Industry:

Education

Team size:

6 people

Country:

Switzerland

Project Duration:

2 years

The year started & completed:

2021 – In progress

We built the platform that lets the University of Basel run its Medical Faculty examinations remotely, with one side for the students sitting exams and another for the staff who create them.

Scope and Objectives

Two sides of one platform: the students sitting exams, and the staff setting them.

Exam Manager

A university employee creates an exam in the Exam Manager, choosing the types of question it contains and how many of each.

Question Types

Questions can be multiple choice, gap questions, or dropdown menu questions, and can ask a student to watch a video, listen to an audio recording, or look at a picture.

Sitting an Exam Remotely

A student logs in to the website with their own credentials and sits the exam from wherever they are.

Adaptable to Other Institutions

The project is flexible and adaptable, so other educational establishments can implement it for their own examinations.

iOS Companion

A separate iOS version of the service, BeAxi: iOS, carries slightly extended functionality alongside the web platform.

Focus Areas and Deliverables

One-Week Sprints

The SCRUM manager chose one-week sprints to keep risk low and team productivity high, which suited a project running to a relatively short cycle.

A Product Owner in the Loop

Sprint planning gave the product owner direct influence over the workflow, with room to make adjustments as the product took shape.

Daily Meetings with the Customer

Daily meetings with the client kept the university informed of project status throughout, an approach chosen because of the specifics of this project.

Two Interfaces, One Product

Work ran on both sides of the equation at once, so students sitting examinations and employees managing them each received an interface built for the way they use the system.

Challenges Identified

A Two-Fold Application

BeAxi: Web is a two-fold application, meaning the team had to consider the experience of the students who would sit the examinations and of the university employees who would manage them. The developers had to ensure that on both sides of the equation there was an intuitive and reliable interface, for the best user experience and maximum effectiveness.

Reliability Under Exam Conditions

An examination happens once, at a fixed time, for every student at once, so the platform had to hold steady at exactly the moment it carried the most weight.

A Range of Question Formats

Supporting written, media, and interactive question types in one exam meant the Exam Manager and the student interface had to agree on every format the faculty wanted to set.

Results of the Project

A remote examination service for students, and an exam manager for staff.

Students obtained a convenient service for sitting their exams remotely, while the university's employees obtained a useful tool for creating and managing different types of quizzes.

A university employee first creates an exam in the Exam Manager, deciding the type of questions and their quantity. Questions may be multiple choice, gap questions, or dropdown menu questions, or may ask a student to watch a video, listen to an audio recording, or look at a picture. A student then logs in to the website using their credentials and sits the exam.

The project is flexible and adaptable, and can be implemented by other educational establishments. There is also an iOS version of the service, the BeAxi: iOS application, which carries slightly extended functionality.

Business Value

Examinations that travel with the student, built and managed by the faculty itself.

Examinations Held Anywhere

Students sit their exams remotely, freeing the faculty's examination schedule from the capacity of its halls and the location of its students.

Exams the Faculty Builds Itself

University employees create and manage each exam through the Exam Manager, so setting a new paper is part of the teaching job rather than a request to a technical team.