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Frequently Asked Questions
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| Why are there two prices for each edition of exam9? | |
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| Some people having tested the exam9 products will be happy to use them as they
are. However, developers often wish to customise the code to suit
their or their client's requirements. For this reason it is possible
to buy exam9 with the source code and to customise it accordingly. The two different versions for each product are therefore identical except that the source code is editable in one and not in the other. |
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| How do educators use exam9? | |
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After logging in an educator can select new exam to create a new test. On the exam parameters page select the class name for which the exam is to be created. If it doesn't exist select new class and create it and then return to new exam. Input the various exam parameters and the details of the first question and submit. The exam details and the first question are now setup. Continue adding questions until the exam is finished. Questions can be added (select append ) or deleted (select delete) later as required. In order for students to take an exam their details (name and student number) must be first setup by selecting add details. In the educator edition this will be done by the educator, however, in the college edition it might be preferable to have an administrator set these up (for example an educator with access level 1 or 2 is not permitted to delete student details). A student can login by clicking on a link like http://www.somecollege.com/exam9/ where exam9 is the name of the folder in which the exam9 files have been placed. The student selects the class, and then after selecting the exam title inputs their student number and the exam password. If the student doesn't finish in the allotted time the exam is automatically submitted and a result given for the questions completed. The student can use their student number to check all their results. The educator can check the results for the year, the class or the individual student. Some educators set a series of short open book exams during a term / semester. At the end of the semester / course they may set a large supervised test which can consist of a selection of questions taken from the previous exams.This is facilitated by creating a 'random exam' which consists of an arbitrary selection of questions from all the exams within any class. Another way of using this feature is to create a large reservoir of questions under one exam title and then set up a 'random exam' which can use different selections of these questions. |
| How are exams assigned to students? | |
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In a supervised setting the students can simply login to the exam (using a link from the college web site for instance) and select the exam title indicated by the supervisor. The student will input their student number a long with the exam password which must also be provided by the supervisor. Getting students to do open book test by themselves can be useful in getting them to work through their class notes. In this case the exam title and password can be emailed to a student or posted on an electronic notice board or web forum. When the deadline for the exam submission is past the educator can simply change the password of the exam to prevent any further submissions. |
| Can I customize the exam9 code? | |
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As there have been a lot of requests to be able to customize the coldfusion code, all the pages except quizresults.cfm are now unencrypted on Exam9 College. Exam9 Educator is still partially encrypted but will be released in a similar format during June 2004. |
| Does Exam9 only run on Coldfusion MX Servers? | |
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Initial development was on Coldfusion 4.5 and subsequently
for CF MX servers. Graphs used to display results are not supported
in 4.5 and the syntax will create an error. CF 5 used different tags for graphs which are now deprecated. Copying the two pages in the CF5 folder to the includes folder sorts this issue out. It is anticipated that further development will incorporate Coldfusion Components (CFC's) which are only supported by MX servers. |
| Why was Exam9 developed? | |
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The impetus for developing Exam9 was due to the frustration of a part time IT lecturer who found that while regular exams helped classes enormously they resulted in a never ending burden of corrections. Exam9 allows exams/tests to be set up with a minimum of fuss, corrections are automatic and students can keep track of their own results. Exams can also be edited and recycled/updated. |
| Can I set up Exam9 if I have no IT knowledge? | |
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The following are the steps required to set up Exam9 on the Internet. A datasource name( points to the database used by exam9) which is by default called exam9.mdb . It is recommended as a security precaution to change the database name. This can be found at exam9/chalkless/data/exam9.mdb . To change it simply right click with the mouse and select rename as you would with any file. Two links need to be created from an existing web site to allow lecturers or students to login. Some basic knowledge of web design is required to do this and a web master could set this up in a few minutes. |
| How secure is Exam9 if its online? | |
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The Macromedia Coldfusion server environment provides for a high level of security. However, it is recommended to make a copy of the database file fairly frequently (i.e. weekly or monthly). The hosting company will / should have the web site completely backed up, but it is good to keep a copy offline. A simple FTP program, like Cute FTP, will facilitate this or DM can look after the backups - view services. |
| What exactly does Exam9 do? | |
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It allows educators/trainers to set up multiple choice
exams, that can be taken by students/trainees whose details have
been entered into the exam9 program. Once submitted the exams are
automatically corrected and the result stored under the students
identity number. However, the best way to understand Exam9 is to login using the lecturer login, set up an exam (i.e. a few sample questions) and then use the student login link to take the exam. As well as this core functionality, there are a host of useful administrative and editing capabilities. |
| What is the difference between Exam9 Single and Exam9 College editions? | |
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The functionality is identical, however on the college edition because it may be used by several lecturers, there are different administrative levels.If required an administrator can be set up who is responsible for entering and deleting student details. Lecturers then only have to concerned with setting up exams (or new classes). Once an exam is set up the exam and student results for that exam remain associated with the individual lecturer. |
| If only a handful of lecturers are going to use Exam9, would it not be better value just to buy several Exam9 Single editions? | |
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This depends on your hosting company. Typically a hosting package includes the use of two databases. However once the use of more than two databases is required, extra charges come into play. Five editions of Exam9 Single will have five databases associated with them, whereas Exam9 College which can be used by numerous lecturers has only one database associated with it. |
| Can Exam9 be worked off a local college network? | |
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Yes, it can. Setting up a web server environment is an option with
most networks. However, there are a lot of advantages to running Exam9
online. Educators can access it from home as well as in college. Similarly,
students can check their results from home and for non critical exams,
may take them from home. Similarly, it is much easier to forward updates
or occasional bug fixes if the program is online. For college's or companies that host their own web sites it might make sense to run Exam9 on their web server however to do this a license for Macromedia's Coldfusion MX Server would need to be purchased and installed. |
| How many exams or students can Exam9 handle? | |
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The limit will relate to the Microsoft Access database. With a large number of students taking exams simultaneously there could be submission issues (page not found type errors) if the load is too much. If such problems are encountered it is recommended to migrate the Access database to SQL Server which will have no limit. |
| Can the styling of the Exam9 products be changed? | |
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The styling for Exam9 is contained in the style sheet file chalkless.css and a good web designer could easily adjust the color scheme and fonts to match the schema in an existing college web site. |
| Should the database containing the exam results and questions be backed up? | |
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As standard, the ISP (internet service provider) will keep a
back up of all items on a web site. However it is good practice to
do regular backups of the database by downloading it once a week
or
month and changing the name of the database to indicate the date
(i.e. exam9_results_20nov02.mdb). In particular just before the start of each new year when all students are moved on a year, new student details are added and graduating students are removed, its highly recommended that a backup is performed for archiving purposes. |