User guides

Once ICT has accepted and processed your exam booking, you will receive a confirmation email including a zip file and instructions on how to use ICT E-exams.

The zip file will be encrypted and you will be provided with the key in person, over the telephone or on an encrypted email. Opening the zip file with the provided decryption key will enable you to view the PDF document enclosed.

The document contains a set of instructions and a username and password for each computer in the room. During the exam a student will use the credentials supplied on the sheet to log in to a computer.

Each file and set of instructions are unique to the room that you have booked. The instruction sheets must be used in the room they were created for, the room can be determined from the machine ID at the bottom right of each sheet. You will receive a new file per exam per room.

Students must log into computers that have been set up for an E-exam. These can easily be identified as they will have a green background as shown in the image below.

[e-exam screen image]

Student access to files and other resources

Files or other resources you wish to make available for students during the exam can be saved in the S:\ drive. This needs to be done ahead of the exam and is accessible from the exam accounts. Please contact ICT if you require assistance with this.

On exam day, ICT will lockdown the computer during the hour slot before the exam starts. The computers will be restricted as per your requirements.

The invigilators should distribute the instruction sheets to the students and collect the sheets at the end of the exam. If accounts are pre-allocated to individual students, then please ensure you allocate the correct credentials to each student.

Invigilators should familiarise themselves with the exam submission process and enforce it during the exam. All files created or edited during the exam mustbe saved to H:\.

What if the computer crashes during the exam?

If a computer crashes during an exam, then the student can be moved onto another computer. They should log on with the same credentials and any work saved to their H:\ drive will be accessible.

How to access Software?

Microsoft Office Applications can be found from the Start Menu of the computer. All other software can be accessed from the Software Hub.

The Software Hub will automatically load when a student logs in to a computer. If the Software Hub doesn’t load, or you accidentally close it, then there is a shortcut on the desktop or in the Start Menu. Alternatively, you can load your favourite browser and navigate to https://softwarehub.imperial.ac.uk. 

How to access Blackboard (if required for the exam)

Blackboard can be opened on any browser. Students should go to https://bb.imperial.ac.uk and log in using either their exam login or their personal College login as directed by invigilators.

Students will be unable to view any course notes during the examination.

Printing (if required)

Once a student has completed their exam. They can print documents by:

• Selecting Print in the open application
• Choose ICT Print Service
• Select Print One Sided
• Go to the nearest touch card printer and log in using your Exam account credentials given to you at the start of the exam.
• Select Pull documents.
• Select the documents you wish to print, and press Print.
• Press Sign out.

Retrieve your documents and hand to invigilator to submit.

Any file a student wishes to be marked should be placed in the H:\Submit folder.

They will need to follow these instructions:

• At the end of the exam double click on the ‘Submit’ icon on the desktop.
• The H:\Submit\ folder; will open automatically – all work you wish to submit should be saved here
• You will then be prompted to enter your CID
• Finally, you will be asked for confirmation of the list of work that is to be submitted. If all is correct, selct ‘Yes’ and the computer will log you out.
• If you are not ready to submit, select No, this will exit the Submit process which can be then be restarted when you are ready.

Please ensure that the invigilator checks the number of submitted folders are correct before ICT return the computers to normal mode. If a student saves files to C:\ locally, once the computer is placed back into normal mode and the machine reboots, we will be unable to retrieve these files.

The files will be harvested from the exam accounts and placed on a read only network share made accessible to you. The files will not be kept here indefinitely so you should make a copy of them to somewhere secure.

The harvested submissions folder will contain one zip file (containing the work to be marked) per student exam account that was submitted correctly. There are also two text files, nosubmit.txt which contains a list of accounts that did not submit work, this includes accounts that may have not been used (spare computers).

Checksums.txt contains an MD5 checksum of every zip file as it was at the Harvest (we also retain another copy of this file). This is a very reliable method to verify data integrity. it can be used to show work has not been tampered with during transmission or storage.

Within the zip file, there is a text file containing the student’s CID and what they agreed to during exam submission.

Once the work has been anonymously marked the files can be re-collated with the student that created them in two ways, either by using the CID supplied by the student during submission or using the instruction sheets collected at the end of the exam.