Developing an Open-Book Online Exam for Final Year Students

Keith Quille, Keith Nolan, Brett A. Becker, Seán McHugh

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

    9 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Like many others, our institution had to adapt our traditional proctored, written examinations to open-book online variants due to theCOVID-19 pandemic. This paper describes the process applied to develop open-book online exams for final year (undergraduate)students studying Applied Machine Learning and Applied Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning courses as part of a four-year BSc in Computer Science. We also present processes used to validate the examinations as well as plagiarism detection methods implemented. Findings from this study highlight positive effects of using open-book online exams, with ∼85% of students reporting that they either prefer online open-book examinations or have no preference between traditional and open-book exams. There were no statistically significant differences reported comparing the exam results of student cohorts who took the open-book online examination, compared to previous cohorts who sat traditional exams. These results are of value to the CSEd community for three reasons. First, it outlines a methodology for developing online open-book exams(including publishing the open-book online exam papers as samples). Second, it provides approaches for deterring plagiarism and implementing plagiarism detection for open-book exams. Finally, we present feedback from students which may be used to guidefuture online open-book exam development.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationITiCSE 2021 - Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education
    PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
    Pages338-344
    Number of pages7
    ISBN (Electronic)9781450382144
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 26 Jun 2021
    Event26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE 2021 - Virtual, Online, Germany
    Duration: 26 Jun 20211 Jul 2021

    Publication series

    NameAnnual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE
    ISSN (Print)1942-647X

    Conference

    Conference26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE 2021
    Country/TerritoryGermany
    CityVirtual, Online
    Period26/06/211/07/21

    Keywords

    • artificial intelligence
    • machine learning
    • online exam
    • open-book

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