Abstract:

For many years and even decades, classical paper-and-pen exams were conducted in the lecture hall at universities for student cohorts of all sizes almost exclusively. The associated disadvantages such as high correction effort, limited question types and lack of interactivity were accepted due to the long tradition of such exams, legal security and also due to the absence of better solutions. At the Technical University of Munich (TUM), paper-and-pen exams were also the most commonly used exam format for a long time. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic development, many of those responsible for the examinations made increased use of electronic online examinations in the past semesters in order to enable their students to continue their studies despite the Covid-19 lockdown and high incidences. After an initial learning curve, many lecturers realized the clear advantages of the electronic formats in terms of scaling, automatic correction and variety of possible (interactive) question types.

Since summer semester 2022, courses and examinations at TUM - similar to those at many other European universities - have increasingly been held in the lecture hall again. But influenced and inspired by the electronic examinations during the pandemic, many lecturers would now also like to see more electronic formats in the lecture hall in order to be able to continue to use the advantages mentioned. However, no suitable computer pools existed at TUM to handle large electronic exams with hundreds of students (at TUM there are exams with 600 to 1000 participants!). In addition, the buildings at TUM are highly fragmented and spread across many locations. Therefore, the strategic idea was developed to make the existing classic lecture halls usable for electronic formats with the help of BYOD concepts. However, there are many general conditions to be considered for electronic lecture hall exams: Older lecture halls in particular have hardly any power outlets and therefore do not provide a basic infrastructure for electronic examinations. It is also sometimes unclear whether the signal from the WLAN is strong enough to provide stable access to all laptops and additional smartphones or other devices brought along into the lecture hall by students.

When considering these aspects, new questions come up like: What to do if the students' laptop batteries can't last a 90-minute exam? What if no suitable laptop is available for the student at all to bring to the lecture hall? Or: What if during the exam the internet connection fails for some students or even the whole cohort?

The presentation at INTED 2023 will first provide an overview of the development of electronic exams at TUM during the pandemic semesters. It will then identify important framework conditions for large electronic lecture hall exams in BYOD format and will identify potential problem areas. The most important part of the presentation will explain the newly developed concepts for BYOD exams with large cohorts in the traditional lecture hall, addressing in particular the most obvious problem areas such as access to the electricity network, internet access, and lack of suitable devices. Finally, experiences from the pilot examinations conducted so far, some with more than 200 students, will be presented. In addition, results from the accompanying evaluation of the electronic lecture hall examinations will be presented, which were reported by the students in the pilot examinations.

Keywords:

Electronic Lecture Hall Exams, BYOD, Exam Concepts.