Principles and considerations for assignment-based (take-home) exams

Take-home exams are offered as an alternative to in person on campus exams. Here are some key principles and considerations to keep in mind when designing your take-home exams.

Principles

• An assessment task without invigilation​
• Released and submitted via Canvas run by Subject Coordinator​
• Identity verification is provided through student LMS login only ​
• Always open book and no restrictions on materials that can be used or accessed during exam (other than library materials which are not accessible to all students)​
• Must be scheduled during normal exam period and timetabled by SAU exams team to avoid clashes​
• Designed so that they can be completed in 2-3 hours  (i.e. same length as usual in person exam)​
• The window provided to sit and submit completed exam is typically a minimum of 6 to 24 hours timeframe ​
• Students should log off while completing exam (students log on to LMS to access their exam paper, log off to complete and then log on to submit)​
• Use of Quiz function not recommended (consider timed LMS exam instead to use Quiz)​
• Questions require higher order thinking skills, such as interpretation, analysis, synthesis, generating ideas and critical reflection​
• Students should have opportunities to practice with sample questions and using the exam set-up in advance ​
• Weighting recommended to be no more than 30%​
• Test papers formatted as a Word or PDF documents, unless Excel etc. templates are used. Students should be advised on required submission formats and submission naming convention (eg. student number-subject number-Aut20exam.docx​).
• Recommended academic integrity mitigations required (refer to table on next slides)​
• Submission to Turnitin recommended for originality checking on text-based exams

Considerations

Encouraging academic integrity and discouraging cheating

The risk of cheating, including contract cheating, is best reduced through a combination of education, support, design and detection strategies: ​

• Create a good learning and teaching environment during the teaching session​
• Develop students’ awareness of academic integrity and their ability to undertake all of their studies with integrity​
• Develop students’ awareness of English-language support opportunities and encourage them to participate​
• Support students to prepare for the take-home exam, especially if it’s an unfamiliar format for most​
• Provide practice questions with model answers and feedback (which could be generic) and practice opportunities to submit (especially if you’re using a different submission method from that used for assignments)​
• Have localised, applied, interpretive or reflective questions that incorporate material that is more specific to the course or ask about process as well as answers. These could include questions that require students to include personal responses and examples or that require students to refer to in-class discussions and/or lecture materials.​
• Provide clear and realistic advice to students on the forms of assistance that are and are not allowed during the exam (e.g. you are allowed to use spelling and grammar checkers but are not allowed to have someone else check your work)​
• Provide clear advice to students on the provision for vivas being used if cheating is suspected and on the penalties that can be applied for cheating ​
• Make sure that students know that you know about common cheating practices and that you’ll be checking for cheating​
• Ask markers to look for evidence of contract cheating. If markers look for it, they’re more likely to find it if it’s there.

Additional mitigations for academic integrity issues

• Create new questions each session and not recycling previous questions​
• Create different versions of the take-home for alternative times or deferred tests​
• Submit completed papers via Turnitin for plagiarism checking​
• Compare writing level and style to other writing samples from the same student​
• Using Voice tools (e.g., Zoom, MS Teams) to do some oral testing (vivas) or to have students justify their responses to make sure that they formulated arguments on their own

Timetabling of take-home exams

Although the number of final exams is decreasing, there may be students with exams in up to four subjects. For this reason, take-home exams will be entered into the exam timetable to avoid clashes. The exam window will commence from the scheduled start time in the timetable and continue until the finish time set by the subject coordinator.

Exam windows

Windows can vary between the release of questions to submission of responses, anywhere from a minimum 6 hours to more than 24 hours. It is suggested that they be no longer than 24 hours, with questions involving no more than 2 hours of writing time. 

Types of questions

Take-home exams should focus on questions that require higher-level thinking, interpretation and application rather than recall of factual material. Exams that require research need to allow students the time to do this and the time to then write up the response. Exams that have a higher weighting may involve more research time during the exam window.

Communicating to students

The timing of the exam window needs to be clearly specified to students before the start of the exam. Students should also be appropriately advised on how to best prepare beforehand for this type of test.

Student equity

Especially at present, the window of time provided needs to be sufficient for students to have some flexibility. For example, to allow for carer responsibilities, differences in home environments and support for any technology issues that might arise. A 24-hour window should be sufficient for most students. Students should have opportunities to practice using the exam set-up in advance where possible. 

Accessibility requirements

Students who have accessibility requirements are advised to consult with Accessibility Services and liaise with their Academic Liaison Officer in the usual way. Some requirements such as breaks and extra time are already more flexible with take-home exams, while other requirements may need different forms of adjustment.

Student wellbeing

Exams are stressful. Take-home exams are said to be less stressful, but can promote anxiety and unhealthy student behaviours (such as going without eating or sleeping) for the exam window duration. It is for this reason that exam windows longer than 24-hours are not recommended. These could simply become “assignments” with a turnaround of a week or longer. Please do not use the expression “24 hour exam”. Instead, use language “2 hour open-book take-home exam, questions released at x, answers to be submitted by y”.

Availability

Academics should be available by email at minimum for the first hour and last hour of the take-home exam window, with academics advising students of any other times when they will be available. 

Technical support for students

ServiceConnect is the first point of contact for students for IT support. Phone support is also available via +61 2 9514 2222 during these hours​: Mon-Fri 8am to 9.30pm AEST and Sat & Sun 9am to 5pm AEST.

Take-home exam cover sheet

The following is a templated cover sheet that has been created for online take-home exams – please adjust the indicated elements to make this appropriate for your exam instance.