Before the pandemic, we had physical classrooms or auditoriums filled with students who appeared in final exams. On the contrary, today, we have online classes to attend online exams – no invigilation. With no one keeping an eye on students, they found various ways to exploit. For example, many students availed themselves of online exam assistance from the experts at online class help platforms.
Technology has introduced several exam software in contrast to students having external online exam assistance. Teachers are flourishing these free open-source exam software solutions to create and conduct online exams effectively. To leave behind the pen-paper form of assessments, exam software solutions are indispensable with drastically growing online education and learning. By all means, the use of technology to retain students from getting online exam assistance is inevitable.
Online Exam Software
An Online Exam Software is a tool to create and conduct online exams with real-time feedback to explore each student’s abilities. An online exam is based on the following parameters:
– Type of exam
– Questions navigation
– Timer
– Topics
– Difficulty level
– Negative marking (optional)
– Live proctoring
– Results
How Does Exam Software Works?
Online exam software is the most convenient way for teachers to create and take online exams effectively as compared to the traditional method of conducting exams. No exam hall or staff is needed in online exams. The exam software is first installed and then teachers create exams accordingly and personalize them. Afterward, they share the link with students to perform the exam. Besides, these tools can create any sort of assessment, be it a quiz, test, or exam.
Guide on how to use an exam software:
- Install the software.
- Start creating the exam. You can customize the question paper to make it look attractive and intuitive.
- Answer the questions at the end of the exam for easy evaluation.
- Set the timer. Schedule start and end dates for accessing the exam.
- Set a limit for students to attend the exam.
- Share the link in the classroom.
- Finally, get insights after the completion of the exam.
Benefits of Exam Software – Why Exam Software?
Technology never comes empty-handed. Therefore, there are various benefits of preparing and conducting exams via exam software. Let us have a look at the benefits of online exam software:
– Cost-effective in terms of arranging an exam hall and hiring staff for it.
– Saves a lot of commuting and evaluating time.
– Easy access via the internet and instant results.
– Secure form of exams as compared to on-campus exams.
– To emphasize, fewer chances of cheating through proctoring online exams.
Top 10 Free Open-Source Online Exam Tools for Educators
Upon Googling for the best free and open-source online exam software, you may find various tools. However, it becomes quite difficult to narrow down and choose the best one. Therefore, here are some top free online exam tools for educators to create and conduct online exams:
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Kaldin
Kaldin is an open-source web-based exam software to create exams with existing questions or make their own in various categories. In Kaldin, teachers can customize each question by defining its complexity and duration to complete the specific question. In addition, categorize your questions and set multiple question papers with different schedules. Set users to perform the exam and once they finish the exam, teachers get instant results and notifications.
Kaldin is an online exam software developed on programming languages such as Java, JavaScript, and MySQL.
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TAO Testing
TAO is here to innovate digital assessment methods by giving freedom and control to teachers to evolve learners. It is a cloud-based open-source exam software that offers flexibility and security to its users.
TAO Testing software runs on every browser but recommends Linux OS such as Ubuntu, CentOS, or macOS, and Windows as well. It runs on Apache2.4 web server with PHP 5.6 to 7.1 installed and databases supported MySQL 5.7, PostgreSQL 9.5, or newer versions of Maria DB 10.1.
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R/Exams
R/exams is an open-source automated exam creation tool with a pool of personalized exams, tests, quizzes, and other forms of assessments. It offers automatic evaluation, live voting, and the possibility to create customized outcomes. R/exams include various types of exams and questions with formatting done on either LaTeX or Markdown with dynamic content such as text, numbers, graphics, and textbooks.
Nonetheless, it works on all operating systems; Windows, macOS, and Linux.
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EduExpression
EduExpression is developed on the CakePHP framework which makes it a secure open-source exam software that requires no coding. Unlike any other exam tool, EduExpression has a live android application for improved accessibility – a unique examination system as White Label App. It offers various exam settings and types of questions with flexible markings and instructions to students. Similar to other software, it provides instant detailed results in a graphic format for better insights on the performance of students.
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Pesofts
Pesoft is an online examination software system to create and conduct exams online featuring multi-lingual questions. It enables teachers to conduct multiple tests or exams simultaneously from anywhere, desktop or via mobile app. Pesofts features an in-build proctoring tool to prevent exploitation in online exams and prevent students from taking online exam assistance from experts on the internet. With its friendly user interface, teachers can use Pesofts conveniently with highly responsive software and mobile application.
Similar to others, Pesofts generate quick report of results for analyzing and comparing. Besides, it facilitates teachers to record sessions without the intervention of any plugins.
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QuestBase
QuestBase is a fast exam software to evaluate students through exams and tests. Import from Excel or PDF, or create questions with a user-friendly interactive user interface. Put all the questions in a questionnaire box and distribute the link among the students. QuestBase is also an automated tool that does the work for you and provides instant feedback on the exam. With QuestBase teachers can create infinite numbers and types of questions in a single questionnaire.
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PaperShala
PaperShala is an online platform for students to log in and perform the exam. For educators, it is an open-source free exam software that offers to create exams with unlimited students, questions, topics, etc.
PaperShala has several existing questions and questionnaires that can be reusable by the teachers. It features to pause and resume examination and one-click active and deactivate. In addition, it also offers a student dashboard that gives an in-depth report on students’ performance and class rank-wise results.
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EdBase
EdBase is an exam software platform that makes teacher’s life easy and saves time creating exams with a user-friendly interface. With EdBase, teachers can create visually appealing exams with numerous reusable questions and exams. Furthermore, it enables teachers to include graphics and multimedia in the questionnaire. Besides, EdBase is a secure and cheat-free platform for conducting online exams. It is available on both Windows and macOS.
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VirtualX
VirtualX is a powerful open-source exam management software to automate the examination process for educators. With VirtualX, teachers can create individual and group exams with different schedules supported by 12 different types of questions incorporating complex formulas and equations.
Customize the visuals of questions and once the exam is finished, it instantly generates results and reports with graphical analysis by manual evaluation of descriptive questions. VirtualX supports different types of languages.
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Mettl
Mettl is a robust online examination platform with a suite of digital tools for teachers to play with and create intuitive exams. Besides, it also features proctoring tool based on AI and live recorded proctoring to prevent students from cheating. Mettl has an automated and manual evaluation system and online certification program.