Online exams might be new to most of us, but they’re no more difficult than traditional exams. While there are some challenges, like sorting out your tech set-up, there also are some unique benefits, particularly in terms of wellbeing.
In this Lightning Session, we cover all aspects of writing online exams, from putting your wellbeing first to managing your time to handling tech errors. Watch the recording, then scroll down for our top tips!
1 Write Healthy
Traditionally, exams were short and intense. While some online exams will just be 2-3 hours, many others will give you a much longer period, anywhere from 12 hours to a week! If you have one of these longer exams, it’s vital that you don’t work constantly during that period. In fact, it’s often best to write the exam in a 2-3 hour period, just like before.
Here are a few wellbeing tips for extended online exams:
- Set up your space. Find a quiet spot, and make sure your desk is tidy. Gather everything you need, like pencil and paper, and make sure your phone is on silent or in another room.
- Establish boundaries. These can be interpersonal (make sure your family or flatmates know not to disturb you) or personal (decide what time you want to stop working every day, and stick to it).
- Eat, sleep, and exercise. Make sure your exam doesn’t interfere with these important activities. You should also drink lots of water and eat healthy snacks during the exam, and even take quick breaks to stretch or meditate.
2 Write Smart
Running out of time during an exam is a major worry for many students. Even in a longer exam, it’s important to know how to plan out your exam to get the most out of your time.
- Read the full paper. Before starting to write, make sure you know exactly how many questions there are and which ones you’ll answer.
- Make a plan. It’s helpful to allocate a certain amount of time to each question, ideally based on how much the question is worth. If you’ve got one question worth 30% and one worth 70%, then you don’t want to run way over time on the first question and end up only half-finishing the longer one.
- Know how to avoid plagiarism and collusion. You can read more in our Collusion vs. Collaboration guide, but the key thing is to follow the Academic Misconduct Statement you’ll find in your exam module. This says that you aren’t allowed to talk to anyone (including friends, family, coursemates, or university staff) about your exam. Sending a friend an encouraging “I know you can do this!” text before the exam starts is okay, but definitely steer clear of any chat about which questions you’re answering or what sources they’re using.
- Finish Well. Leave a significant chunk of time at the end to go over your exam. This allows you to fix any errors in your work, and it also means that if something goes wrong during the upload, you still have plenty of time to fix it.
3 Troubleshooting Your Tech
If something goes wrong during your exam, don’t panic! There are all sorts of ways to fix any error that comes up. Here of the first things you should do:
- Read the error message. Error messages on My Dundee are generally fairly good at telling you what the problem really is, so take a minute to read it carefully.
- Clear your cache and cookies. If you’re getting an unusual login pop-up, follow these instructions to clear your cache and cookies, or try using an incognito browser.
- Try a different browser. Often, simply switching browsers will get around unusual errors.
- Save as a different file type. If your file won’t submit, switching to another format (such as PDF) often helps. You can do this easily in word with the “save as” function.
- Compress your images. If your file is too big to upload, follow these directions to compress images in your word document.
We hope this Lightning Session has made you feel more confident about writing your online exams! You can find more top tips in our Writing Online Exams Guide, or in our Revision Bites resource.