How to run an online exam: a step-by-step guide

An online exam is not a form with a link. The form is a tool. The exam is who sees which question, how the timer runs, how the copy is kept, and when the result is released. When those pieces scatter, a "the system broke" complaint is usually a process complaint.

This guide is for a company running its own exam: internal training, a certificate, supplier competence, an end-of-class test. It does not describe a national admissions exam.

1. Write the purpose and the pass rule

   Pass mark, number of attempts, duration, what you assume about cheating, who sees the result. These go on paper (or into the system) before the exam. An argument afterwards that "it was actually 70" means the rule was invented during the sitting.

2. Fill the question bank

   Questions do not live inside the exam. They live in the bank, with topic, difficulty and tags. When you fix a question, later draws pick up the new wording. Copies of past sittings do not change.

3. Set the draw rule

   "The same 20 questions for everyone" is sometimes right. For most corporate exams a rule is better: 8 from this topic, 7 from that, 5 from this difficulty. Save the rule. Do not invent it again for the resit.

4. Lock the session settings

   The start-end window, the timer, shuffling, whether going back is allowed, when the result is shown. Settings freeze at publish. Candidate A and candidate B should not sit different clocks.

5. Trial it with a small group

   Five people is enough. Connection, mobile, timer expiry, a skipped question, a dropped session. An exam first tried on the real cohort is not a trial. It is an incident.

6. Publish, watch, release the result

   After publish, the panic button should not be "extend everyone's time". What you watch: who started, who is stuck, who submitted. The result opens according to the rule you wrote at the start. If a certificate follows a pass, it comes out in the same motion.

Why the bank sits apart from the exam

A team that copies the same 40 questions into every period loses track of which wording is current by period three. The bank is the single source. The exam draws from it by rule.

In learn.place, a question added from the bank is copied into the exam. Changing the points on the exam does not break the bank. The reverse holds too: fixing the bank wording does not rewrite yesterday's paper. That split closes the "which text was live that day" argument when someone appeals.

Draw rules: the same form is not required

When the stake is high (a certificate, a supplier, an authorisation) you do not want every sitting to see the same order. The rule says: take this many items from the pool under these conditions. Before the draw, the system shows whether the pool is large enough. If it is not, do not publish.

A saved rule set exists so next year you do not invent the exam again. It is not a Slack search for "how did we do this last time".

What to watch during delivery

A working exam screen holds three counts together: started, in progress, submitted. The fourth count is late. An automatic reminder to a late candidate makes fewer mistakes than a proctor sending mail one by one.

A dropped session (browser closed, power cut) also has a rule written in advance: resume, restart, or forfeit. Do not vote on that during the sitting.

Results and certificates

Opening the score immediately is not right for every exam. Some teams want an appeal window; some release at once. What matters is that the moment of release is a setting, not an operator's memory.

If a pass produces a certificate, the document is a continuation of the exam, not a separate Word template. A verifiable code, a date, which exam, which score: those sit on the document.

Common mistakes

• Two hundred questions are written before the purpose.
• The pass mark changes after publish.
• Mobile is never tried; the field team sits the exam on a phone.
• Time is applied differently because "that person was busy".
• Bank and paper are the same file; edits wipe history.

None of these is a request for a new feature. All of them are the rule not being written before the exam.