An online exam with a hundred and fifty students at once: how to get there without surprises

A simultaneous exam does not use the network like any other morning

On a normal school day, network use is spread out. One class watches a video while another works on documents and a third generates hardly any traffic. Even when many devices are connected, they are not all doing exactly the same thing at the same time.

An online exam changes that. A hundred and fifty students switch on their devices, connect to the Wi-Fi, sign in and open the same platform within minutes. Something similar happens at the end, when they all try to save or submit the test within a very short period. Between those two moments, depending on the type of exam, traffic is more moderate.

That explains why a network works perfectly for months and then struggles on precisely the day of a test like this. The absence of problems during normal lessons does not prove that the infrastructure is ready to handle so many devices and simultaneous connections concentrated in a few spaces. It is very similar to what we take into account when sizing a school's Wi-Fi: the capacity needed depends on how many devices will actually be using the network at the same time and where they will be concentrated, not just on the number of students at the school.

Before reviewing the network, you need to know what the test will be like

To assess the scenario properly, the IT lead needs to receive some basic information from the school's leadership well in advance. Running a test with a hundred and fifty students spread over six classrooms is not the same as concentrating them in three neighbouring spaces, because it completely changes the device density each access point will have to handle.

You also need to know how many devices will be connected simultaneously, including teachers' devices and spares. It also matters whether all the students will use devices managed by the school, individually assigned devices or a mix of different equipment: the more varied the device fleet, the more individual situations come up.

Then there is the exact timing of the test and, above all, whether the platform sets a specific opening and closing time. When there is a limited submission window, a ten-minute interruption has very different consequences from one in an activity that stays open all day.

All of this should reach the IT lead before exam day. Not because they need to take part in the academic organisation of the test, but because this information determines what has to be prepared technically.

The best check is a real rehearsal

If there is one measure that drastically reduces the risk, it is testing the whole journey before the exam. And the closer that trial is to the real situation, the more useful it will be.

It is not enough for the IT lead to open the platform on two computers one afternoon. What is useful is a small trial with the students themselves, in the classrooms that will be used and with the devices on which they will later sit the exam. They should all connect within a similar time frame, sign in, open a practice activity and submit something.

There is no need to use a real exam or devote a whole lesson to it. A short ungraded quiz is enough. What matters is going through the whole process, because problems arise at different points: when connecting to the Wi-Fi, when signing in, when opening the activity, while browsing or at the moment of submission.

This rehearsal makes it possible to spot in good time very simple problems that, on the day of the test, are enough to block a student: an account that does not work, a device waiting for an update, a part of the classroom with weaker coverage or a browser permission that had not yet been accepted. Sorting out any of these situations several days beforehand is easy; doing it while the rest of the group is already sitting the exam is much more complicated.

Student accounts are also part of the preparation

Not every problem in an online exam is related to the Wi-Fi. One of the most common situations is that some students cannot get into the platform while the rest log in normally.

Behind this there are cases such as a student who joined during the year and whose account was not set up correctly, a student who has not been added to the right virtual classroom or a password that needs renewing. These are individual problems that are usually sorted out quickly when they are spotted in time, but that hold up the start of the test if they all appear together that morning.

The check must be done with student accounts, because a teacher or administrator account has different permissions. The fact that the IT lead can open the platform correctly from their own account does not prove that students can do the same. That is precisely why the rehearsal with the group is so useful: it tests devices, Wi-Fi, authentication, permissions and access to the activity all at once.

Content filtering can block something the exam needs

There is one particularly important check in schools that use web filtering. The exam platform may be allowed and yet rely on auxiliary services hosted on other domains that the filtering system has blocked.

The typical symptom is that the main website loads correctly but certain parts of the test do not appear. If the filtering tool works by category, a new or little-known domain may have been placed automatically in a restricted category.

Once again, the simplest way to check is to use a device and an account with the same policies a student will have during the exam. That way we are not just checking that ‘the website opens’, but that the whole journey works under the real conditions students will have.

At PenwinEdu we take this kind of situation into account when managing filtering, because security and availability have to coexist. The aim of a browsing policy is not to prevent the use of the tools needed for learning or assessment, but to limit what the school has decided should not be available.

You also need to decide what students will be able to do during the exam

For some tests, the school wants to restrict browsing so that students cannot look at external pages or use services that are not part of the exam. Technically there are different ways of approaching this, but it is important not to promise features that have not been tested beforehand.

A filtering system allows certain categories or destinations to be restricted during the time slot of the test. Some device management environments also allow further restrictions to be applied. But whether a true ‘exam mode’ can be created, leaving a single specific platform accessible, will depend on the type of device, the management system and the service contracted.

Any special configuration must therefore be tested beforehand on the real devices. An overly restrictive policy runs the risk of blocking an auxiliary service the platform itself needs.

Nor does technology replace the school's rules. A clear policy on what may be used during a test, known to students and families, complements the technical restrictions and avoids leaving the whole management of the exam to an IT configuration.

Plan B is decided beforehand, not when something fails

Even after the infrastructure has been properly prepared, there is an unavoidable reality: some elements are outside the school's control. The broadband provider's connection goes down from time to time, and the platform hosting the exam also has outages.

When that happens, the decision is no longer purely technical. Do you wait ten minutes? Do you extend the time? Do you carry on another day? Is there an alternative? What happens to a student who has lost their session while the others have been able to continue?

These questions are for the school's leadership and those academically responsible for the test, not for the IT lead. The recommended approach is to agree on them beforehand and even set how long an interruption is considered acceptable before a particular decision is taken.

This is especially important for applying the same criteria to all students. If the rules are decided while the problem is already happening, it is much harder to make sure that equivalent situations receive the same response.

The IT lead must be able to report quickly whether the problem lies within the school, with the broadband provider or in the platform itself. Given that information, the academic decision should already have been planned.

On the day of the test, support also needs to be organised

However well prepared the technical side is, some individual case always comes up. So, during the test, the person responsible for dealing with issues has to be reachable and, wherever possible, free of any other commitment that would clash in that time slot.

There should also be a single channel for asking for help. If a teacher has to leave the classroom to look for the IT lead, call different people or find out who is available, time is lost that is especially valuable during an exam. The internal phone, a specific extension or whatever channel the school considers appropriate will do, but it has to be decided and known to everyone invigilating the test.

Spare devices should be ready, charged and checked before the start. And when a problem is reported, three pieces of information make things move much faster: which classroom it is in, how many students are affected and exactly what message appears on the screen. A brief check before the test begins also confirms that the situation is still the same as it was during the rehearsal.

Preparing an online exam means preparing the whole journey

A test with a hundred and fifty students does not depend just on the bandwidth of the internet connection. Also involved are the access points serving each classroom, the device density, the user accounts, the devices, the platform, the filtering and the decisions that have to be taken if any of those elements fails.

That is why the most useful preparation is to reproduce the real situation beforehand. The same spaces, equivalent devices, student accounts and access to the same platform. Whatever goes wrong during that rehearsal can be put right in time; whatever is discovered once the exam has started affects the class directly.