A Multi-Course Report on the Experience of Unplanned Online Exams

We report our experience of preparing and conducting unplanned online exams in the unique half-physical, half-virtual semester of Winter 2020. The report covers four courses in a large university's computer science program, ranging from first-year to third-year. With the data generated by students taking both in-person and online exams in multiple courses, we perform analyses to evaluate the validity of the online exams (especially the unproctored ones) as an assessment of student understanding. With the fine-grained student activity data provided by the online exam platform, we are also able to investigate the patterns in student exam-taking behaviours and their correlations with student performance on the exam. In addition, we share, in detail, the tips and lessons that were learned throughout the process of designing, implementing, and hosting the online exams.