E-Examinations

Contact

ePrüfungsteam

Phone: +492418098399

The telephone numbers and individual e-mail addresses of the team members can be found on the MfL website under the heading “Electronic examinations”. Please note that the team can only be reached by telephone to a limited extent during the examination phases.

Please use the functional email address for all questions, approvals and files. It is not necessary to add individual members of the eExams team to your mailing list, as all team members have access to the ticket system and your inquiry may otherwise be processed twice.

During the supervision of remote exams and in case of urgent questions, you can reach the eExam team via Webex. Due to RWTH requirements, the use of Slack and WhatsApp chats is not possible. Zoom chats can also be used by prior arrangement.

Quick menu

Examination application

Examination preparation

Examination process

Downloads

Important Links:

Documentation

Files & presentation templates

Please note that we are constantly adapting the templates and that your locally saved version may no longer be up to-date.

Examination application

Like all other examinations, apply for your e-examination by the relevant deadlines at carpe diem! Please also note that you can request a permanent conversion of your exam from a paper exam to an eExam in presence or as a remote exam.

With the increasing number of e-exams, we can no longer guarantee that your exam can be taken in person if you book directly via RWTH Online. However, remote examinations can still be requested in this way.

Reading times:

If your exam includes a reading time, whether on paper or in the Dynexite system, please include this in the processing time when booking the date. In other words, please request the entire time required for your exam so that the rooms are blocked for you and the eExam team can also schedule the correct supervision times.

Examination preparation

Deadlines

  1. 6 weeks before the exam date: Task creation by the eExamination team (if desired)
  2. 2 weeks before the examination date: Review of the tasks
  3. 1 week before the exam date: Installation release to the eExamination team
  4. After deregistration phase / up to 1 day before the exam date: List of participants to the eExamination team

If the exam is released for installation less than one week before the exam date, the eExam team can no longer guarantee quality assurance. This time is used to test the exam on the exam server and to fix any problems.

Especially in the summer semesters, it often happens that contact persons are only available again shortly before the exam due to vacations. So please note the vacation times and create the exam in advance if necessary.

Structure of Dynexite

In Dynexite, exams are sorted according to organizational units and exam designations; the identifiers are not automatically transferred from RWTH Online. If you have any questions about your exam, please always send these designations or a link to the exam.

Please give your exam a unique name, not "Klausur" or "Prüfung", so that it can be found again on the exam server. This also applies to documents such as participant lists.

So that the participant lists can be processed directly, please send them to us as a CSV file with ONLY the matriculation numbers. Please delete all other information and headings from the list. It is not absolutely necessary to create individual lists for each room, as access to the examination servers from outside the rooms is not possible.

Examination process

Supervision

We recommend at least 2-3 invigilators per examination room, depending on its size. Please note that the MfL employees are not supervisors and are not allowed to carry them out. In any case, it is necessary that at least one person responsible for the examination is present in the room; examinations cannot be carried out without supervision by the chair.

Compensation for disadvantages (Nachteilsausgleiche)

Compensation for disadvantages must be communicated to the e-examination team up to 10 working days before the examination date. If the rooms for face-to-face examinations are occupied after your examination or if a separate room is requested, we cannot carry this out. In this case, it has proven to be a good solution to have those taking the exam on a computer at the institute and supervise them remotely. We will be happy to advise you on this. If the room is free after your exam, the NTA can also take notes there, provided the exam does not last longer than 6 pm.

Compensation for disadvantages that we can implement are time extensions and pausing the exam. It is also possible to zoom in on the screen as required.

Disadvantage compensations that we cannot implement include: enlarging the mouse pointer, dark contrast mode and changing the font type/size.

Exam times

The eExam team offers exam support from Monday to Friday between 08:00 and 18:00. Outside of these times, you can take remote exams in DIY mode (see below). This is also possible for face-to-face exams, but only in the ZuseLab and not in the Sparkassenforum, Couvenhalle and HKW-V rooms. Please note that no member of staff will be available outside of supervision hours should technical problems or questions arise.

Do-It-Yourself mode

You can find all information about the DIY mode in the documentation.

Additional software

If you need additional software for your exam in addition to Dynexite, please let us know in good time, preferably a few weeks in advance. In face-to-face exams, this is only possible in ZuseLab and must be agreed with the admins there. It is also necessary that you test the software yourself in advance. It is not sufficient to have this tested by the ZuseLab staff, as they know neither your exam nor the corresponding requirements for the software.

You can find the contact details for ZuseLab here.

Schedule for examinations with large numbers of participants

For exams with several cohorts, a 30-minute break should be planned between them to allow students to change and approx. 10 minutes to announce/read through the conditions of participation.

In the run-up to the exam, communication between the individual exam rooms should be established via a Webex or Zoom chat. Instructions for individual tasks can be communicated across rooms so that no group of students has an advantage over the others.

Basic arrangements such as admission and the start of the exam should be agreed before the date. It is not necessary to have all rooms start at the same time, but it makes more sense to start after the respective announcements. This prevents longer waiting times in the rooms and leads to a smoother process for everyone involved.

310-600 Teilnehmende:

There are two different ways of carrying out the test.
1. two cohorts with two different but equivalent examinations
2. two cohorts with an identical examination
1.)
This option is more time-consuming for the lecturers in advance, as two equivalent, non-overlapping examinations must be created in order to ensure equal opportunities. The logistical effort of this variant is low, as the communication between the students of the second cohort does not bring any direct advantage.

zu 2.)

The logistical effort is greater with this variant, as the students of the first and second cohorts should not meet during the changeover if possible. The first cohort should therefore be passed by the second cohort. Experience has shown that the participants in the second cohort should arrive at a location around 20-30 minutes before the end of the first cohort. As soon as the doors are closed, communication by cell phone is prohibited.

More than 600 participants:

With such large numbers of participants, the creation of two or more equivalent, non-overlapping exams is mandatory, as communication between the first and third cohorts cannot be prevented.

For exams with more than 1000 participants, it is necessary to hold the exam on two consecutive days due to time constraints. Experience has shown that there are no significant differences in the results between the two examination days. The planning of the two days must be coordinated well in advance.


As communication between the students (forums, social media, etc.) between the cohorts and days on the task types could distort equal opportunities, a homework exercise or mock examination covering the task types is strongly recommended. This does not give any of the participants an advantage, as the task types were known in advance. The exam can also only cover part of the task types presented in advance. In addition, it is possible to offer a randomized exam so that all participants receive an exam specially selected by the system on the basis of a blueprint. However, the prerequisite for this is a sufficiently large pool of tasks.

Good practice from previous semesters:

Institute of General Mechanics (IAM)

Written exam: Mechanics I

Number of participants: approx. 1200 students

Implementation: on two days with three cohorts each

Preparation:

The IAM offers three homework exercises during the semester. The homework exercises are structured in such a way that the same types of tasks are used as in the written exam. This allows all students to prepare for the exam in terms of content and the participants in the cohorts on the second day of the exam have no advantage over those on the first day of the exam. In addition, the homework exercises serve to familiarize students with the system, as an incentive for continuous learning and to earn bonus points for the exam.

Implementation:

There is a communication protocol for all persons involved in the exam with corresponding short chat commands for the individual processes (students seated, students logged in, exam start...). Each room has a person responsible for the exam. They communicate between the rooms, coordinate their room and keep minutes. The rooms are prepared accordingly, the participants are admitted, the exam conditions are presented and the login is carried out. This procedure is repeated after submission.