Moodle Exam Guard Update

Following feedback from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, the DLE team have implemented an enhancement to Moodle Exam Guard which allows a quiz close time to be extended in exceptional circumstances for a whole group when a cohort is currently sitting an exam and exam guard is in place.

As a reminder, Exam Guard was introduced last year to prevent staff from editing a course while an exam is underway due to its risk to Moodle performance. In the past, this caused some exams to be disrupted, particularly for larger cohorts.  It works by preventing staff from editing their course or indeed the quiz itself from 10 minutes before the Moodle quiz opens until 10 minutes after the quiz has closed.

However, we were alerted to a use case where editing the duration of a quiz might be necessary – for instance, if a fire alarm were to go off and the assessment needed to be extended for everyone currently sitting it. Therefore, it is now possible to add more time to an exam which is in progress when Exam Guard is in place.

Editing tutors on the Moodle course in question or site admin roles can now see an “Extend time” button in the quiz when the exam is in progress should such a scenario occur and they can then add the extension time duration in minutes.

 

 

Please note: if other users or groups are taking the same quiz at a different time (e.g. in the case there are different sittings or for students with SoRAs), it will not affect the close time for their quiz as it will only extend the time for those who are currently in the process of undertaking the assessment.

For further details, please refer to our wiki guide.