As you get ready for a new semester, there are several things you can do to ensure your team’s success this Fall. Read below for tips to complete your category tagging, refresh your ExamSoft skills and knowledge, clean up unneeded accounts, and set up your courses.
It's Never Too Late to Assign Categories
Categories are a powerful tool to help you evaluate performance and improve outcomes. And it’s never too late to implement them. Even if you’ve already delivered exams without assigning categories to your questions, you can assign them retroactively. Then you can regenerate reports for past exams to gain new insights, and you can deliver future exams knowing that you’re getting the full benefits of one of the most powerful features in your ExamSoft portal.
Whether you have new faculty members needing training, new curriculum requiring new questions, or you simply want to ensure that you’re getting the full benefits from the available question types and options, the beginning of a new semester is a good time to train or retrain on question creation.
Read the Basic Steps article to explore different question types and the options that are available to ensure that your questions meet your program’s needs.
Good planning and organization are critical for faculty and student success. Even experienced faculty members will benefit by using a checklist during the first exam of the term.
As a best practice, seasoned ExamSoft admins recommend that you do some clean up before heading into a new term with a new cohort. You’ll also need to set up your courses, add your exam-takers, and set up any accommodations that are needed.
Exam-Taker Clean Up
Begin by removing unneeded accounts for exam-takers who have withdrawn or graduated. This way, the only active accounts in your portal are for current exam-takers. Read the article.
Course Setup
You also need to create or import all courses that will be using ExamSoft.
If you are importing your courses, remember to import the course file first, then the exam taker file, and then the enrollment file. Read the article.
If you are creating your courses within the portal, follow the steps in this article.
Accommodations
For any exam-takers who are granted a testing accommodation, it’s best to apply the accommodations to their accounts before the first exam. Read the article.
Updates & Reminders
Scheduled Maintenance
Maintenance is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. CST on August 20. Please subscribe to updates on the ExamSoft Status Updates page (https://status.examsoft.com/ ) to keep informed about system status.
Want to Chat with Other ExamSoft Admins?
Over the summer, the ExamSoft Exam-Maker Community was expanded to include discussion groups, and we hope that you’ll get involved. There’s a General Discussions group where you can communicate with all ExamSoft administrators, and there are additional groups focused on specific fields (Allied Health, Dentistry, Law, Nursing, Pharmacy, and more). You can ask questions, provide answers, and brainstorm together. Get Started Learning About the Exam-Maker Community