The ultimate guide to the Best Online Exam Software

Introduction to Online Exam Software

The traditional K12, higher education institutions, training institutes, and even the corporate sectors are in their weirdest of times now. With the future of semesters, entrance exams, and candidate exams being made online, there is a large-scale adoption of digital transformation tools. The real catch is not just settling for any, but a reliable and best online exam software. Such a solution has to have a combination of features that overcomes the looming clouds of exam postponement.

Suppose you are one of the pioneers of the higher education industry and still muddled up on why to have online exam software. In that case, this definitive guide could help you materialize on one.

Starting from what an online exam software is, the guide ponders on the purpose, need of an online examination system, current trends, the scope, and finally briefs on how Creatrix Online Exam Software provides a secured, enterprise-grade exam platform for higher education institutions across the world with its unequaled expertise.

Creatrix's online exam software solution assists coaching institutes, colleges, universities, governments, and corporate to easily conduct online assessments. Hence we would like you to give it a read-through to the end.

What is Online exam software?

Online exam software is an advancement over traditional exam management with everything being automated, yet made comprehensive, accurate, instant, and reliable. It is a new way of conducting both online and offline exams and comes with a lot of flexibility and reduced human workload. What makes them more compelling is that they come OnCloud.

It is highly interactive, customizable, trustworthy, secured, and can be accessed from multiple devices.

The whole of the test or exam is pre-planned, executed, and evaluated with a unique suite of tools, features, and functionalities.

This kind of conducting exams has many benefits that rule out the basic idea of the paper-pen way, laborious manual tasks involved, inaccuracy in the collation of data, etc.

The origin of online exam software

To understand online examination software better, we need to understand the origin of the online examination system. Let’s take you through it.

The traditional exam system was good in its own way, however with few imperfections. Online exam management came into vogue right when there was a need for a perfect management system to conduct online and offline exams with more accuracy.

What is the difference between Traditional VS. Modern exams?

While the traditional exam demanded a campus, staff, and faculty to organize exams, the online examination system cut short this burden at a high level. Similarly, when the students were asked to carry documents to verify and authenticate themselves before taking the exam, an online exam didn't.

The online examination platform offers a lot of scope including online remote proctoring, on-screen evaluation, and instant auto-grading that cuts out the institutional costs and time to a large extent.

What is the real purpose of the online exam software?

Online exams are the future of education now. The idea of a pen and paper test is becoming redundant now.

A perfect combination of accessibility, scalability, and security makes them the most desirable among higher education institutions. 

With them, there’s greater convenience with the virtual platform, allowing institutions to upload various question formats and instant real-time updates. Exams could be conducted virtually anywhere, while also protecting integrity.

What is the present need for online exam software?

To even those institutions that are traditional by standards and execution, the current battling situation has forced them to adopt the online way of conducting exams in a streamlined manner. It’s all due to the cumbersome, time-consuming mainstream approach that involved manual invigilation, evaluation, and logistical hassle. 

We need online examination software in place to ensure educational continuity during unforeseen times including the one that we are experiencing now due to COVID-19.

As social distancing measures tighten across the world, the Higher Ed’s and Universities hope of “returning to normal” seems to fade fast. Hence, there’s the urge to “keep exams going” in 2021 with online exam software that could help higher ed institutions move their exams online securely and quickly.

The ongoing pandemic has been a threat to the traditional education system and its way of conducting paper-pen tests. The only savior now is adopting an online examination system.

According to the existing growth trends, a recent news report predicts that the global Online Assessment Software market might reach over xx million USD by the end of 2026.

Source: Cheshire Media

How are higher education institutions and universities managing this lockdown scenario?

Some institutions have already realized the need for blended learning and an online examination system. They have given a nod to conducting exams online. This has in fact, given a much-needed respite to students who have been concerned about their future. Some universities even allow students to take up open-book exams remotely, followed by online submission.

In some other disciplines, colleges enable remote proctored online examinations, having someone to watch over through the webcam, when the exam is in a secured browser.

A majority of other universities are considering timed open-book online exams. There are several others who have been offering distance learning courses, with no inclination toward online teaching has also egged institutions to online learning now.

But to those traditional ones who still follow the conventional approach, embracing an online exam system is still a nightmare. However, the time is so tough and the only sensible move is to adopt the new teaching model, to avoid postponement and cancellation of exams. Remember, this will only result in student drop-outs with them missing on their morale.

Reasons why universities show hesitancy to embrace Online Exam systems?

There could be many reasons why educationists and universities have not yet inclined toward the online examination model. We have figured out a few reasons for their hesitation here;

• Lack of awareness about the online examination system
• Resistance to shift from the traditional method
• Security concerns due to online invigilation and proctoring
• Confusion about the communication lag in students

how does examination online system the work

Every step is digitized in an online exam system. Let us see how an online exam system ideally works;

Creation of test:

The admin gets various options to create an online test that is interactive and effective. A wide variety of tests including subjective, objective, or MCQ types can be created in no time. The choice of questions can be pulled from an existing question library in just a click.

Conducting the test:

Conducting large-scale exams feasibly in a systematic manner is possible using an online test. Categorizing candidates into respective groups and assigning individual tests to every group, thus conducting multiple tests is also possible.

Proctoring of test:

Ensuring high proctoring during exams for the reliability and credibility of the test is essential. A good online assessment software comes integrated with a proctoring system to support a cheat-proof testing environment at multiple levels. Candidate authentication, recording of the entire session with audio and video, and online invigilation are some of the few methods.

Evaluation of test:

The crucial part of any exam is the grading, report, and feedback. An online examination system ensures an accurate and detailed report system, instantly. Advanced online exam software has on-screen evaluations that can immediately be evaluated by the faculty—followed by the generation of grade books with scores on every subject, section, and question of the test.

The scope of the Online Examination System in the present times

Times are changing, and so should higher education institutions. If not for the COVID-19 outbreak, pen-and-paper exams would’ve been normal. In times like this where there are constant explosions, one has to be ready to shift to the changes and to stay abreast of the evolving times.

That’s why one needs online examination software. In the present times, as we just saw the data above, the Online Examination Software is widely used as compared to other exams for their user-friendliness.

A secured software with fewer bugs, errors, security-related problems, that which doesn’t collapse or crash due to the power supply, and improves the quality of the software is the call of the day.

What are the benefits of an online examination software system?

The benefits an online exam software could offer its stakeholders are limitless. We tried to sum up them for you here.

Benefits to a higher education institute/university;

• Saves time with no wastage of paper and time taken to print and hand them out.
• Reduces administrative burden by automating the entire process. Faculty can spend time in better productivity.
• Instant exam results at the swipe of a button, which again reduces the faculty and other staff workloads significantly.
• Intuitive measurable and accurate insights with advanced algorithms and computing power that rules out human error.
• Visual reports on various parameters for future analysis.
• Anytime, anywhere assessments, saving logistical effort that paper-pen exams usually take.
• Automatically calculate marks for the answer sheet
• Can create multiple sets of question paper in an effortless way, thereby saving time
• Less storage space on the cloud server.

Benefits to the students;

Here are some of the benefits an online exam software could offer its students:

• Standardized assessments, hence unbiased.
• Instant outcome-based feedback after the online exams.
• On the cloud, so gives students any time, anywhere access from their favorite devices
• Less time-consuming for students.
• A fair, transparent, and the secured exam environment
• Defined marking scheme with clear instructions outlined for answering
• Students can be tested on a wide variety of questions, concepts, topics, formulas, etc, which will foster active preparation and practice on the subject matter.

Benefits to the faculty;

• Allows easy creation of formative assessment tools
• Creation of online tests, quizzes & surveys in a few clicks
• Instant test results publishing with feedback to students and parents
• Single click report generation

What are the features of online exam software?

The online exam system is becoming the most trending topic of 2020, and there’s no doubt about it. Let’s get into knowing its features to understand what makes it so special. We’ve already discussed the top 15 features of online exam software in one of our blogs.

It is true that there are a host of online exam software packages available in the market. But institutions cannot blindly go for a one-size-fits-all theory as it purely depends on your institutional requirement, budget, unique approach that you have towards your learning, and development.

Hence reading through these features will help you nail down the right one.

What are the requirements the best online exam software should meet?

A good online exam system should be developed to ensure the fulfillment of a real online examination.

From the above feature findings, we could hence conclude that an online exam software should

• be easy to deploy in a single server
• allow countless users to take up exams in a single shot
• support creation of MCQ questions, quizzes, aptitude tests, questionnaire
• support all kinds of exams
• possess a secured proctoring mechanism to protect exam ingenuity
• allow easy creation of web-tests in just a few clicks
• have the option to import bulk questions from the question bank
• have question shuffling option which avoids cheating among the aspirants
• have an instant on-screen evaluation for quicker evaluation and reports

Checklist to keep in mind while choosing the best Online Exam Software

Right from top-notch universities to corporate organizations, everyone is keen on conducting an online exam for student evaluation and their selection process. We pulled out this checklist just for you so you find it useful while selecting an online exam software.

• Check for their cumulative market experience
• Double-check the offers they offer
• Ponder the user interface of the software
• Do not miss out on their clientele base

How can online exam tools assist in conducting OBE-based exams?

Outcome-based education is the call of the day. With OBE tools integrated into exam software, things get super easy for institutions.

While the institutions get an eagle's view on both faculty and students, faculty get to do automatic mark calculations and graphs generation of attainment vs threshold.

To the students, it’s even easier with options to check guidelines, rubrics, outcomes expectations with viewing remarks and comments on each assignment from the faculty.

An OBE integrated online exam software allows stakeholders to create automated outcome-based assessments, with a mix of web-based online tests, assignments, quizzes, and puzzles instantly bearing on learning outcomes.

How Creatrix can help?

Creatrix’s online test platform is a holistic tool that encompasses all the features mentioned above and significantly eases the process of conducting assessments. Designed for higher education institutions, colleges, universities, and testing centers, our assessment platform helps to conduct online exams remotely with real-time digital online proctoring and invigilation capabilities, so you can rest assured that there’s no cheating happening.

Creatrix's Examination Management System is extremely useful for measuring candidates’ skills, abilities, and personalities through all levels of taxonomy applied to it. It,

• Happens to be a one-stop-shop for your online exam needs – integrates creation and delivery of assessments including content authoring, proctoring, evaluation, reporting, grading, and certifications for successful candidates
• Allows easy content creation and updates – a wide variety of exams could be created in different question types
• Prompts a secured online exam environment – offers a range of proctoring services to keep candidates away from cheating

If you were to ask what we do, here are they;

OBE-based Assessments

It has set a benchmark in automating outcome-based assessments in an innovative way using online tests, assignments, and puzzles, followed by instant result publishing, bearing learning outcomes.

Robust Assessment Framework

The exam framework model in Creatrix has a clear route on how to perfectly plan, design, conduct exams, evaluate, and improve exam management. The outcomes mapping, assessment planning cycle, and actionable insights are some of its drawing cards.

Saves faculty’s time

With this online tool, the faculty won’t feel the pain of manually running and organizing exams. Things get easy because of the shared repository to create assessments with built-in templates. Creating, revising, and distributing outcome aligned assessments happen in no time. Powerful powerful data-driven insights come in handy.

Data Insights for students

Students gain a better learning experience, with options to track their progress, reflect, and receive instant updates sent about the assessment schedules. The actionable data obtained help them identify the gap and work for continuous quality improvement.

They can take up both online and offline Assessments, get notified with instant alerts on their performance.

Detail attainment calculation

Any higher education institution looks for initiatives to analyze, assess, and map students’ learning to attain POs, COs, and PEOs. We handle these hectic outcomes attainment calculations at ease in Creatrix with the system being able to trigger threshold values and map questions with the outcomes. Creatrix allows easy creation of rubrics and outcome-mapped assessments in just a few clicks.

Item Analysis

Scoring tools and Gap Analysis allow educators to assess core competency development in any program. Our assessment module provides statistical calculation through standard deviation/mean/median for accurate data on the level of teaching/learning happening to identify gaps. We follow a systematic process to learn how well your institution is performing and work to improve the performance.

Flexible Grading Mechanism

Higher Education is on the lookout for tools to measure learning effectiveness and review the instruction methodology. Creatrix Assessments module offers various advanced technology tools including automated timetable, online assessments in the form of rapid tests, quizzes, discussions, projects, assignment submission, and evaluation forms to improve the performance of students and teachers.

Supports all question formats

Creatrix online exam software complies with various Taxonomies (Blooms Taxonomy and Solo Taxonomies) and their Educational Objectives. We help create the following types of exams as MCQs, short answers, long answer type, diagrams, etc.

• General Assessment
• Assessment with Rubrics
• Assessment of Outcomes (OBE/CBE)
• Assessment with Question Paper

Our tool allows students to solve even the most difficult formulae writing, integrations, equations, calculus, matrices, trigonometry, and much more. There is also room for examiners to provide diagram-based questions by creating graphs, clipart, or flowcharts.

High-level online proctoring

This feature allows institutions to conduct online exams with no more anxiety of students involving in malpractices. During online assessments, there also options to monitor if instructions are followed, expectations are met, questions are answered,  and the assessments are completed fairly. Incidents where students show misconduct would be captured and dealt with in real-time.

On-screen evaluation for real-time results

With Creatrix instant on-screen evaluation, instructors have a real-time feel of paper-based evaluation. There are a variety of security stages including a complete security management process, evaluator handling process,, and click-by-click audit processes, etc. What’s best about this feature is you get to instantly publish assessment results by configuring date and time with the student result management system.

The real workflow of Examination software at Creatrix

(i) Pre-Examination Stage

Student Enrollment - Creation of the Student Profile of all first-year students with complete personal information. On the approval, the student will be auto-enrolled for the mentioned course.

Online Portal for Exam Registration – The registration process and saving of all the courses each student has enrolled in a semester, followed by the exams.

Exam Fee Generation & Collection - The generation of invoices for exam fees, payment of exam fee and capture the fee payment statuses

Registration number generation - The process of generating exam registration numbers based on the logic provided by the higher education institution for all the students who have paid the examination fee.

Exam Scheduling & Conflict Management - The creation and publication of the exam schedule, with no clashes.

Hall Ticket Generation - Generation of the hall tickets containing exam center to be made available to students

Question Paper Setting - Setting of question paper based on the registration number count

(ii) Examination Stage

Invigilator Allotment - Selection of internal and external invigilators/observers for exam

Attendance Management - Capturing exam attendance information of all the students

Incident Management - To report incidents of exam-related malpractice to the University

(iii) Post-Examination Stage

Student Identification Masking - The process of masking student registration number appearing for the exams

Marks Import and Grading - Updating external marks of all students and calculating provisional score and grade

Grafting/Gracing - Forming several grafting and gracing policies

Result Generation & Publication - Working towards the publication of the final results

Student View - Viewing of the results, schedules, and transcripts by students

Revaluation and Retotaling - The process of revaluation and re-totaling on requests by students

Grade sheet print / transcript - Generation of grade sheet/transcript students

Promotion logic - Promoting students to next semester/graduation

Equivalent subject mapping for transfer cases - Mapping of courses for transfer students

Support for other Exam Types - To provide support for conducting different exam types.

Why chose Creatrix Online Examination Software?

Creatrix Campus unlocks performance through reliable and secure online assessments. Its a mature and full-service online assessment tool that helps clients of all bases to improve their performance and meet accreditation and other compliance requirements. It prompts institutions and organizations to unleash their potential by delivering hassle-free, reliable, fair, high security, and valid assessments, anywhere and anytime.

Creatrix Campus offers a secure integration with any other LMSs, SIS, or Proctoring Services that you have been using earlier, bringing everything together in one place. We are a cloud-based exam management platform offering easy deployment, data security, scalability with complete test delivery, 24/7 support, and most of all, the peace of mind for your’s institution’s excellence.

Most importantly, the test taker experience and flexibility of usage make online examination an easy process. Having known the numerous benefits of an online exam system, it is time that higher ed universities take one step forward to accepting the digital shift, for good. Get in touch to know more about us.