TABLE OF CONTENTS

The exam monitor serves as a real-time management system for online exams. Within the monitor, you can observe students' activity during the exam, provide comments, answer questions, and preview the exam.


Actions that can be performed within the monitor include:


  • Examinee Management: This involves tracking examinee statuses, verifying examinees, granting personal time extensions, adjusting restrictions, allowing re-entry to the exam, and more.
  • Correspondences: You can engage in general messaging, communicate regarding specific questions, engage in private chat, and receive messages from invigilators. Additional information on messaging during online exams is available in the detailed guide.
  • Updating Exam Settings and Making Various Changes: Depending on the institution and exam type, you may have the flexibility to make certain adjustments to exam settings and appendices.
  • Real-Time Monitoring and Live Alerts: The system provides real-time monitoring capabilities, including live alerts from the AI system regarding image or sound irregularities among examinees, with the option to view relevant examinees in real time.

Accessing the Monitor


You can access the exam monitor after uploading, creating, and approving the exam. To enter the monitor, follow these steps:

  1. Locate the relevant exam within TomaSafe and select it (no need to lock it).
  2. Access the "Activity" menu.
  3. Click on "Open Exam Monitor.


The Main Screen


Graphical user interface, application Description automatically generated


The main screen of the monitor is divided into four tabs for easy navigation:


  1. Exam Info: Provides essential information about the exam.
  2. Participants: Allows you to manage and monitor the examinees.
  3. Messages: Access messages, chat, and communication related to the exam.
  4. Exam Preview: Provides a preview of the exam content.


Please note that depending on your product version, additional tabs may be present


1. Exam info


In this tab, you can view the basic settings of the exam. Most of the settings on this screen are read-only, except for fields accompanied by a 'pencil icon,' which indicates that they are editable. For instance, you can make changes to fields such as time extensions, IP blocks, hardware tests, and more.

An example of editable fields are time extension, IP blocks, hardware tests, and others.

The changes made in this tab apply to all students in the exam.


It's important to understand that any changes made in this tab will affect all students taking the exam.


Please be aware that the buttons labeled 'Try to export again,' 'Late submission,' and 'Create demo' are intended for use by technical support staff only."


2. Participants


This tab provides detailed information about each student assigned to the exam. The table columns are categorized as follows:


Personal Information


This section includes the examinee's identifier, student identifier (in some institutions, both fields show an identity number, while in others, it may display an identity number, student number, or username), full name, email address, and telephone number. Clicking the eye icon will display the relevant information.

Start Time Limitation


This field allows you to set a limit for 'late login,' specifying how long an examinee can still log in after the examination's start time. This limit applies to all students and can be adjusted in real-time using the monitor. To modify the examination start time for a specific student, click the pencil icon in the student's record, select the late login time in the pop-up window, and click 'Apply.'

Exam Status

  • Not Yet Started: Indicates students who have not logged into the exam at all.
  • Logged In But Not Yet Started: Refers to students who have logged in but are in the pre-exam stages, such as verification or hardware checks, and have not yet started the exam itself.
Examinees are allowed to log into the exam 30 minutes before the official start time. However, they can only begin answering questions and actively participate in the exam when the official start time is reached
  • Active: Students who are actively answering exam questions.
  • Disconnected: This status may occur for several reasons:

    • The student's internet connection has been disconnected.

    • A student has chosen to waive the examination.

    • The student exited the exam in the middle without submitting it.

  • Submitted: 
    • Students who have completed the exam and pressed the 'Submit Examination' button. Once this button is pressed, students cannot return to the exam unless they are assisted by an invigilator or lecturer.
    • Students whose exam time has expired and whose exam has been automatically submitted
  • Waiting for Re-login: If a student logs out of the system before submitting the exam and attempts to reconnect, they must request permission to do so. The status 'Waiting to Re-login' will be displayed on the monitor. To approve or reject reconnection, click the pencil icon, choose the appropriate response, and click 'Apply.'
  • Verification Rejected: In cases where an exam requires verification through photographing a picture and identity card, an invigilator may not approve the images submitted by the student, resulting in a 'Verification Rejected' status. Students who receive this status will not be able to take the exam and should contact the institute's examinations desk for further assistance.


The participant's table can be filtered based on each of the statuses described above. To apply a filter, simply click on the rectangle corresponding to the desired status

Verification


In the monitor, you have the capability to confirm or reject participants based on various verification types:

  • Camera Verification: In this method, students use their cameras to capture images of their faces and an identity card, which they send to the invigilator for verification.
  • Manual Verification: This option can be chosen when the examination is conducted in a computer lab, and verification is not required.
  • Password Verification: Students log in using a password provided by the invigilator. These passwords are generated in the Exam Info tab.
  • Room Verification: This involves capturing a 360-degree video of the examination room using the Tomax dedicated mobile app for verification purposes.


In TomaSafe, you can set a default verification type for all students. During the examination, if necessary, you can change the verification type for specific students in case of any issues. To make this change, click the pencil icon.


Verification Status:


If verification by a camera is set, you can click on the "pencil button" in the respective column to verify the identity of the students.

On the verification screen, you can verify, reject, or request additional photos from the students as needed


Examination Room Verification Status:

When examination room verification is enabled, students must capture a 360-degree panoramic video of their workspace and send it to the invigilator for verification.


Camera Location Verification Status:

If the verification process involves the use of a second camera, students will utilize the Tomax mobile application to position the camera so that it covers their entire work area.

Bathroom Break:

In this column, you can confirm or reject students' requests for a bathroom break. When a student submits a request for a bathroom break, their status will change to "Awaiting Approval" in this column. By clicking the editing pencil icon, a window will appear, allowing you to choose whether to approve or reject the student's request, or you can address it later.

Disabled Hardware Checks:


You can specify which hardware checks you want to disable, such as multiple screens, microphone, and camera. If these checks are not relevant or if there is an issue for a particular student, they can be deactivated.


Please note that you are selecting the hardware checks that you do not want to perform.

Time Extension:

This column displays two types of time extensions:


  • Time Extension: This refers to manually adding extra time during the exam, specified in minutes.
  • Percentage Time Extension Accommodation: This represents a fixed additional time, given in percentages, to which the student is entitled due to special accommodations or adjustments

To provide a specific time extension during the exam, click the "pencil" button, enter the number of minutes you wish to add, and then click "Apply." 

 

Submission

the system displays information on submitting the exam, submitting scans and submitting additional files.

 

A submission may be removed to allow for resubmission as necessary.


Submission type

as long as the student has not submitted the exam and the time is not over, this field will state “Not yet submitted”. 

If the student has finished the examination before the time is up and has submitted it, “Manually” will appear, and if the time is over and the system automatically submitted the exam, “Automatic” will appear.

Submission of scans and scans amount

In exam with open-ended questions, the lecture has an option of allowing students to scan pages of a pen&papper written answers. Pages are scanned after the submission using the Tomax mobile application. In these columns one can see whether scans have been submitted, and if so, how many pages have been scanned.


Number of files uploaded

For certain exams, the lecturer may add an Excel file to an open-ended question, on which the student can answer on during the exam. This column shows how many excel files have been added to the examination submission.


Removal of submission

In certain cases, such as when a student submits an examination by mistake, a submission may be removed to allow the student to enter the examination again. To remove a submission, press the Remove submission burron in the student’s record. The student will be able to re-enter the exam (pay attention to limitations of time and the need of approving re-entering)



Questions answered

In this column one may see the percentage of questions each student has answered. From this column one may receive an indication on the progress status of students relative to the time left and consider a time extension.


Grade

This column shows the mark that the student has received for closed questions only. If there are open-ended questions, the lecturer must check the exam and give a mark in the Tomgrade system.


Proctoring

The proctoring feature is only active when activated (per customer’s request). The proctoring feature allows for activating a mechanism that films and records the student while taking the exam, uploads the data into an AI system and generates live events report.


Proctoring type

 In this column one may see which proctoring type has been selected for the examination and change it as necessary. One may select from recording the examinee by camera, recording the examinee’s screen display and/or additional camera.

Integrity score

this column shows the score given to the student based on an analysis of the events that were generated during the exam. The analysis is automatic.
Click the pencil to enter the student’s integrity report, view events and videos.


Integrity Review Status

This column shows the status selected for each student after going over the Integrity report. The status in the reliability report can be changed



Column management

The participants table contains many columns, not all of which are relevant to all exams and all participants. Each user can enter column management and select which columns to display and the order of the columns. To open a column management screen, press the Column management cog



3. Messages and correspondence with examinees

For information about messages in the monitor press here

4. Exam preview


The Exam Preview tab allows the lecturer/invigilator to view the exam structure as the student sees it. For random order exams, the version that is displayed in the preview is of the original exam as created by the lecturer.