create & offer eTests and eExaminations

The legal framework for conducting examinations in alternative (electronic) formats can be found in the following documents:

• New regulations on written face-to-face examinations in electronic form (eExaminations), video-based oral examinations and online examinations (distance examinations) in the Amendment Statutes to the General Examination and Study Regulations for Bachelor's/Master's Degree Programs dated January 26, 2021 (RahmenO-Bachelor [German] and RahmenO-Master [German]).
• with the 5th amendment to the framework regulations, the regulations on online examinations were made permanent according to the statutes of 29.8.2024 (for BA; for MA)

General principles and regulations for the conduct of examinations in accordance with the Framework Regulations Ba/Ma also apply to electronic forms of examination. These include, among other things, regulations for determining examination eligibility, the procedure to be followed in the event of attempted cheating and breaches of regulations, and for recording the course of the examination.

If students violate the instructions or requests of the examiners or the examination supervisor, this can be considered a breach of order according to § 20 RahmenO-Ba/Ma.

In the interest of equal opportunity, care must be taken to ensure that the person being examined suffers neither advantages nor disadvantages as a result of the online form of examination. Not all students have the same prerequisites for taking an online examination. You should therefore provide alternatives with the same dates so as not to disadvantage named persons. For the purposes of the RahmenO-Ba/Ma, "on-time" means that the online examination and alternative must take place in the same semester within the examination period. Alternative examinations can be e.g. oral examinations, term papers, or similar. A disadvantage compensation for the online examination (longer examination time, etc.) is also conceivable.

Furthermore, attempts at cheating must be excluded or detected as far as possible. Please read the paragraph "Is it possible to monitor students during a synchronous, written online examination?". The identity of the person to be examined must therefore be clearly ascertainable. As a rule, the person to be examined must identify him/herself with a photo document and BTU account, but other suitable means of unambiguous authentication are also possible under certain conditions. For details, please refer to "How can authentication be performed for an online exam?".

The exam will be aborted and the exam attempt will be considered as not taken if technical problems occur that cannot be resolved within a few minutes on short notice.

Data protection must be guaranteed at all times.

In the case of asynchronous electronic forms of examination such as homework, essays or self-produced videos, declarations of independent completion of the performance must be requested in accordance with this sample (German).

If necessary, also inform your students that a plagiarism check (German) will be carried out on the submitted texts.

For a semester-long performance review from home, asynchronous electronic forms of examination are particularly suitable. These are procedures in which not all students access an examination system at the same time, but work on tasks within a prescribed period of time (e.g. 6 hours, 2-3 days, several weeks, ...), which they then submit, e.g. via the Moodle function "Task" by a certain deadline. Learn more about Moodle's "Task" functionality (German). Other examples of asynchronous forms include classic homework or short term papers, essays, portfolios, learning diaries, and self-created videos or podcasts.

Synchronous performance reviews can also be conducted during the semester, e .g. in the form of a quiz series. For this purpose, the Moodle function "Test" is suitable (test course see here - PIN: 3689) (German). We recommend to allocate a small amount of time for the short tests. Where possible, the use of free-text items such as case analyses or short essays can make simple "googling" or copying of answers more difficult.

It may be possible to change the form of the exam during the current semester. Please contact the Crisis Team (Teaching and Learning) for the currently applicable regulation.

Papers and presentations can be imaged using a video conferencing system. Depending on the system, students may be able to upload their presentation slides or share via screen sharing. You can find out more about the various tools in the "Conferencing Systems" section and in the following section.

There are several video conferencing systems available for oral exams. If possible, use the BTU-internal platforms, such as meet.b-tu.de (for small ad-hoc sessions up to 10 people) or BigBlueButton (for larger sessions).

By displaying presentation slides as well as their own screen, these systems are suitable for conducting "classic" oral exams as well as for student presentations and papers.

For written online examinations (as well as for e-examinations in general), the following assessment systems are offered as a service by the BTU:

• Learning platform "Moodle"
  • In our self-study course, you can learn more about how to create an assignment in Moodle.
  • In the self-study course "eTests (German)" you can learn more about the "eTest" function and question types in Moodle.
• Examination software"LPLUS-Teststudio
  • Basic information
  • Information about the software

Tip: LPLUS offers greater flexibility in designing and scoring questions because question types can be combined. However, familiarization with the system should not be underestimated, but we are happy to support you. Please do not hesitate to contact us.

Here is an overview of the basic functionalities of both systems in comparison:
download the overview: PDF document

Exams similar to written exams by means of computer can be conducted from home to a certain extent. For asynchronous execution, the open-book variant is suitable, where the use of all materials is permitted during the exam. You can implement this, for example, with the "Assignment" activity in Moodle. To do this, you post a "homework assignment" in your Moodle course. The participants then work out a solution within a given period of time and upload the result as a file to the learning portal. Afterwards, you correct the solution and make the result (with comments) available to the participants online. You will find detailed instructions in our self-study course.

In the amended RahmenO-Ba/Ma (German), Annex 2, No. 4 states: "written examinations [...] whose design and tasks are suitable for preventing attempts at cheating in a comparable manner even without direct supervision [are permissible]. This includes, in particular, examination formats in which the nature of the task, even with the use of certain permitted aids, requires independent [...] processing by the examinee. [...] In such cases, the person to be examined has to assure in writing that the examination was worked on independently and only with the use of the approved aids" (see sample).

Also inform your students that a plagiarism check of the submitted texts will be carried out. Information on plagiarism checks.

The legal requirements can be found in the amended RahmenO-Ba/Ma of 26.01.2021 (German). Essentially, you must observe the following points for synchronous closed-book eExams from home:

Authentication You must ensure that students identify themselves with a photo document. This is possible, for example, by showing an ID in a video conference. In addition, the login to the examination system is done with a personal account. Other suitable ways of unique authentication are also possible under certain conditions. For details, please refer to "How can authentication be performed for an online examination?".

Time window and synchronicity The online examination as a module final examination must be carried out within the examination period in a specified time window and as synchronously as possible for each cohort.

Supervise examination As a rule, written online examinations must be taken under supervision (e.g. via video conference). An exception are examinations according to "Erprobungsklausel", which are designed in form and organization in such a way that cheating has been significantly restricted (see amended RahmenO-Ba/Ma Annex 2, No. 4 [German]). However, only partial solutions are currently available as technical systems for monitoring. For details, please refer to the paragraph "Is it possible to monitor students during a synchronous, written online examination?".

Minimize attempts to cheat To minimize attempts to cheat, they can use the following scenarios (some of which can be combined):

• They can always request a declaration of independent preparation of the deliverables (German), thereby emphasizing the legally binding nature of the submitted examination deliverable.
• We also recommend to set a narrow time frame or a simultaneous execution of the examination.
• By means of randomization (random selection), the exchange among each other can also be made more difficult. There are three levels of randomization available in our examination systems: 1. swapping the answer options or the question order, 2. random selection of questions from a stored question pool (this is also possible in blocks for different topics within an examination), 3. use of formula questions (e.g. in MINT examinations) in which numerical values of a calculation are randomly generated. Instructions for Moodle can be found in the self-study course in the section "Testing and Examination" (German).
• Alternatively, instead of multiple-choice knowledge quizzes, you can offer free-text tasks such as case analyses or short essays on new problems. In this way, you avoid simply "Googling" or copying the answers.
• A plagiarism check can also be announced.
• In Moodle, you can require students to use a secured browser. This makes it possible to limit activity outside of the exam software on students' devices by not allowing the browser to do anything else (kiosk mode). To do this, students must install the browser on their own end device. Details for instructors and students can be found in these instructions, which are revised on an ongoing basis.

Fail-safe technical platform and alternatives You can implement a synchronous written online examination with an eTest in the Moodle learning platform (German) or with the LPLUS examination system. For details, please refer to the paragraph "What tools are available to me for handling online exams?". You must also ensure that students are not disadvantaged when using the technical systems (e.g., in case of failure, poor Internet or physical limitation). You should therefore consider alternatives and have them ready if necessary. This could be alternative examination performances (oral examination, homework, etc.) or a disadvantage compensation (longer examination time, etc.).

According to the amended RahmenO-Ba/Ma dated 26.01.2021 (German), oral examinations are permitted via video conference. This regulation also applies to colloquia, subject to the consent of all participants (see RahmenO).

For the conduct of oral examinations, we primarily recommend the use of BTU-internal platforms, such as meet.b-tu.de (access security via password and BTU account) or BigBlueButton (can be created and managed directly from moodle). Other available video conferencing systems can be found in the "Conference Systems" section.

If Internet access or other technical requirements are not available or only available to a limited extent, students should be offered alternatives in terms of compensation for disadvantages. For example, you can offer an asynchronous form of performance review. For more on this, see "How can I conduct an exam similar to a written exam online asynchronously?" In the event of technical problems occurring during an online examination that cannot be resolved within a few minutes, the examination must be cancelled and the attempted examination must be considered invalid (see also amended RahmenO-Ba/Ma Annex2, No. 3.D. [German]).

eExams that have already been implemented with our examination system LPLUS and have been conducted in the eAssessment Center of the IKMZ so far can in principle also be used for online operation. Please note the conditions required for closed-book examinations, which are listed under "How can I conduct a written, exam-like examination online synchronously?".

As a rule, written online examinations must be taken under supervision. An exception are examinations according to "Erprobungsklausel", which are designed in form and organization in such a way that cheating has been significantly restricted (see amended RahmenO-Ba/Ma Annex 2, No. 4 [German]). For technical and privacy reasons, however, only partial solutions are currently available as technical systems for monitoring. The following scenarios (some of which can be combined) are currently available:

Use of a secure browser In Moodle, you can offer students the use of a secure browser. This significantly restricts the possibilities during an exam on the student's own computer (e.g. opening additional websites). However, this does not allow monitoring of the workstation or external devices. For details, please refer to these instructions.

Accompaniment of an online exam via video conferencing Parallel to the running eExam in Moodle or LPLUS, you can provide live video accompaniment of the exam or observation of the students using the existing video conferencing tools of the BTU (BBB or WebEx). The following settings are feasible:

• Variant Webcam frontal: Students use the webcam at/on the monitor. This provides authentication and a low-threshold way to observe students. However, this does not allow monitoring of the workstation, the screen content or external devices.
• Variant webcam in the room: Students place the observing webcam (e.g. with additional device, such as smartphone or external webcam) in such a way that the person, screen and workstation are clearly visible. This covers the monitoring of the examination situation well. However, for this it is necessary that the video conference is set so that only the exam supervisor can see the videos of the participants. This is currently only possible with BigBlueButton.

Monitoring of video, audio and data streams during an online examination (proctoring) Proctoring describes a software-supported possibility to have each examinee adequately monitored by a (separate) examination supervisor at any time during the examination. For this purpose, the screen as well as one or more webcams and the microphone of each examinee are monitored and evaluated with regard to cheating attempts. The monitoring can be done live or afterwards (via record & review). Work is underway at the BTU to make this possible. However, proctoring is not yet feasible at the BTU for technical and legal reasons.

According to the RahmenO-Ba/Ma, the identity of the person to be examined must be clearly ascertainable. The person to be examined must therefore authenticate him/herself at the beginning of a video-supervised synchronous online examination by showing a photo ID in a video-based application (e.g. video conference). The same applies to video-based oral exams.

However, if a (synchronous or asynchronous) written online examination is designed and organized in such a way that cheating can be significantly limited (see amended RahmenO-Ba/Ma Annex 2, No. 4 [German]) and that no or limited video proctoring is required, instructors may also choose other suitable means of unique authentication. These include, for example, authentication via the BTU account (e.g., when using moodle) or via other personal passwords (e.g., when using the LPLUS examination platform).

In addition, a written declaration must then be submitted by all those to be examined, stating that the examination was taken by hand, independently and only with the use of approved aids.