1.1 – How it all began

Computer exams at D-HEST started with me working at ETH for D-HEST and Dr. Roger Scharpf wanting his students to write an essay at the computer. This was in June 2012.

It was a small exam, roughly 25 students and they were not unhappy until they lost their text in the middle of the exam! When they clicked the save button, everything disappeared. The session had timed out on the server side. You may laugh but we didn’t laugh and thanks to Marco Lehre from LET, only one part of one or two students’ text got really lost. We had everything else! and the students who had lost some text got more time. Dr. Roger Scharpf didn’t give up and we have done this particular exam at the computers ever since without any trouble.

I don’t remember how it got out of hand after that but we got the biggest bump in number when HST Study Director Prof. Ch. Wolfrum told me after his first exam at the computer that he wanted all of his exams to be at the computer!

1.2 – And now

Two and a half years later we have 20 or more exams every semester that are done at the computer.

Figure 1.1 – Number of D-HEST exams at the computer by academic year