The University of South Africa (Unisa) has announced changes to its online examination procedures. Their decision comes after it was found that students were abusing the examination procedure to gain extra time in their examinations.
Unisa decided to reduce the submission time of examination answers to 30 minutes. The majority of students have successfully managed to submit their answer scripts within the stipulated 30 minutes.
Due to the nature of online examinations, some students are at risk of facing technical challenges related to connectivity and loadshedding. This prompted Unisa to distribute an alternative examination submission link to ensure that students could still submit their examinations should they experience challenges.
The alternative submission link was open for longer to accommodate students who may have experienced technical challenges during initial submissions. However, the university believes that students have abused this option and are intentionally using the alternative submission link to gain more time.
Unisa explained, “The submission logs show us that some students come onto the official submission platform late, are unable to submit via the myExams platform and subsequently use the alternative link to submit their late examination answer scripts”.
Unisa said submissions from the alternative link will only be accepted for those experiencing technical challenges. They explained that this decision was taken due to the stability of the myExams platform and students' familiarity with the platform.
The university warned that late coming is not acceptable and students risk not being able to submit their answer scripts before the due time. They reminded students that they should stop writing immediately once the session duration ends and login into myExams to provide their submissions.
“The 30 minutes is provided to deal with whatever challenges may arise during the uploading period. Due to the stability of the myExams platform and our students' familiarity with the platform, submissions from the alternative link will only be accepted for those experiencing technical challenges” explained Unisa.
The alternative link, while still an option for students, will only be available for 30 minutes for submissions. Queries received after 30 minutes of the official examination duration time will thus not be attended by the university.
