A Department of Management undergraduate class has become the first within Strathclyde to have the opportunity of taking an exam which was fully online.
Dr Barbara Simpson, Pam Hearne and Maura Walsh of the Department of Management designed the final exam for 'Understanding Change in Organisations' - a year 2/year 3 class - as an online exam. The exam used the latest institutional VLE system, Moodle. Dr Simpson got the idea for this when she did her 'Life in the UK Test' for a UK Residence Permit, which examined her knowledge over a wide-ranging curriculum.
Then, in discussion with Iain Small (SBS IT Manager) and Howard Ramsay (Learning Technology Adviser, Centre for Academic Practice and Learning Enhancement), she discovered that the university already had the technology to run exactly the same sort of test.
Very aware of the criticisms often levelled at multiple choice tests, the teaching team developed a bank of 66 questions to test students' ability to analyse critically and practically apply theory across the entire curriculum of the class. The exam - for 108 students - took place in three computer labs that had been temporarily isolated from wider internet access. Each student logged in to the exam site and was allocated a random selection of 30 questions. In addition, each student was required to create a Word file containing a short essay that analysed a change situation presented to them online.
The SBS IT and University Learning Technology Enhancement teams were all on hand to assist, but in the event the exam ran very smoothly. The multiple choice test was marked automatically so results were available immediately after the exam and the essays were also available for immediate download.
Students commented very positively on the exam, saying they felt less nervous than they normally would in a conventional written exam.
Dr Simpson said, "Overall, the results were consistent with students' in-class assessments and their grades in other undergraduate classes so, all in all, a very favourable outcome."