Ans offers the flexibility of organizing both digital and pen-and-paper exams in a secure way.
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Vincent Meertens
Program Director BSc/MSc
“From a student perspective, the number of technical errors became minimal, leading to less stressful situations during exam time and an examination office that celebrates the tool heavily.”
Private University
2.000+ students, Germany
2.000+ students, Germany
Customer profile
At WHU, faculty members have the freedom to choose the assessment form for their course. Important is that a minimum of 50% needs to be based on individual grading (e.g. no group work). Lecturers need to indicate prior to the semester start what assessment forms they will be using for their course. In case a final exam is part of it (which is the case in the majority of our courses), our examination office plans it in and coordinates the delivery and set up of the exam.
Lecturers need to prepare their exam themselves in Ans and confirm that the exam is ready approximately 2 weeks prior to the exam. The examination office double-checks the exam and the technical settings, sometimes in coordination with the respective lecturer. Faculty members have a maximum of 4 weeks to grade exams, after the exam took place.
Lecturers need to prepare their exam themselves in Ans and confirm that the exam is ready approximately 2 weeks prior to the exam. The examination office double-checks the exam and the technical settings, sometimes in coordination with the respective lecturer. Faculty members have a maximum of 4 weeks to grade exams, after the exam took place.
What kind of assessing does your institution do?
It strongly depends on our degree program and the course. Many courses make use of multiple assessments: in-between reflection quizzes, group assignments or presentations, and a closing final exam. The final exam was, certainly in our post-experience programs, also in the form of a hand-in assignment or essay. However, with the rise of generative AI we have an increase of on-campus (digital) exams. Most of our final exams at the moment are digital, on-campus exams, with the use of Ans and Schoolyear (as a Lockdown Browser).
"Ans had had a very positive impact on our students. We experienced less technical issues, less complaints, and less cheating (as far as we know) compared to former digital assessment forms...
...It showed that it could offer the flexibility of organising both digital and pen-and-paper exams in a secure way. Therefore, avoiding that students would be able to cheat easily.”
...It showed that it could offer the flexibility of organising both digital and pen-and-paper exams in a secure way. Therefore, avoiding that students would be able to cheat easily.”
Vincent Meertens, Program Director BSc/MSc at WHU
What challenges did you face when using your old assessment methods?
Prior to corona we mainly used pen and paper, or Moodle quizzes. During corona we tried to move assessments towards asynchronous formats, but in the case of the 'classical' final exam, we mainly used Moodle quizzes with Proctorio as proctoring tool.
We were looking for an alternative solution due to technical issues with Proctorio in combination with potential legal risks of using such a heavy proctoring tool in a post-pandemic era. At the same time, we wanted to stay 'digital' and not go back to pen-and-paper.
Therefore we started searching for a tool that could accommodate this. Ans showed that it could offer the flexibility of organising both digital and pen-and-paper exams in a secure way. Therefore, avoiding that students would be able to cheat easily.
We were looking for an alternative solution due to technical issues with Proctorio in combination with potential legal risks of using such a heavy proctoring tool in a post-pandemic era. At the same time, we wanted to stay 'digital' and not go back to pen-and-paper.
Therefore we started searching for a tool that could accommodate this. Ans showed that it could offer the flexibility of organising both digital and pen-and-paper exams in a secure way. Therefore, avoiding that students would be able to cheat easily.
What makes Ans stand out compared to other assessment platforms that you have used?
Flexibility to switch between pen-and-paper and digital exams, the integration with LMS and proctoring and securing tools, as well as the user friendliness in overseeing and organizing the exams while they're taking place. Ans has helped us improve our assessment process by keeping it digital and cheater-proof, while reducing technical complexities and usage of proctoring software.
At first, our lecturers were not a big supporter of another new tool, as we introduced many of them over the course of the Covid-pandemic. This tool also came with extra work, as faculty members needed to import all their existing questions and questions banks into Ans. This required additional work and rethinking the categorization and labeling of questions.
However, as soon as they started working with Ans, complaints disappeared. From a student perspective, the number of technical errors became minimal, leading to less stressful situations during exam time and an examination office that celebrates the tool heavily.
At first, our lecturers were not a big supporter of another new tool, as we introduced many of them over the course of the Covid-pandemic. This tool also came with extra work, as faculty members needed to import all their existing questions and questions banks into Ans. This required additional work and rethinking the categorization and labeling of questions.
However, as soon as they started working with Ans, complaints disappeared. From a student perspective, the number of technical errors became minimal, leading to less stressful situations during exam time and an examination office that celebrates the tool heavily.
"We are very happy to have the WHU on board as our first German customer. During the implementation the communication was very smooth and we could tell that they were well organized and able to meet their deadlines.
One of the main challenges was transferring all their Moodle quiz questions to Ans. Once that was achieved, the WHU managed to implement Ans within the organisation at it’s full potential. Now because of the success of having all Bachelor and Master courses using Ans, the aim is to have all MBA (post-experience) programs onboard as well.
This would result in the whole school using Ans for assignments, exams and final work. For us, that would complete the succes story of implementing Ans at the WHU.”
One of the main challenges was transferring all their Moodle quiz questions to Ans. Once that was achieved, the WHU managed to implement Ans within the organisation at it’s full potential. Now because of the success of having all Bachelor and Master courses using Ans, the aim is to have all MBA (post-experience) programs onboard as well.
This would result in the whole school using Ans for assignments, exams and final work. For us, that would complete the succes story of implementing Ans at the WHU.”
William Hagen, Contract Manager at Ans
What tips would you like to give other organizations that would like to implement Ans?
Ensure that you communicate well with student (representatives) and offer student information sessions to let them already learn how Ans works and is implemented in your systems. For lecturers, organize demo-sessions on how to use Ans, but let them do the work themselves. By starting/working in Ans, they will soon see that it is less complex than they might have thought at first.
We used the introduction of Ans to reorganize and reallocate responsibilities in how we handle examinations. During Corona, multiple departments were involved in setting up a new system for assessment in a very short period. It was difficult to reflect on organizational responsibilities in this corona-assessment system, but with Ans we set clear boundaries from the beginning for the role of the lecturer, the role of the examination office, and the role of other departments such as AI.
Ans had had a very positive impact on our students. We experienced less technical issues, less complaints, and less cheating (as far as we know) compared to former digital assessment forms.
We used the introduction of Ans to reorganize and reallocate responsibilities in how we handle examinations. During Corona, multiple departments were involved in setting up a new system for assessment in a very short period. It was difficult to reflect on organizational responsibilities in this corona-assessment system, but with Ans we set clear boundaries from the beginning for the role of the lecturer, the role of the examination office, and the role of other departments such as AI.
Ans had had a very positive impact on our students. We experienced less technical issues, less complaints, and less cheating (as far as we know) compared to former digital assessment forms.
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"Since introducing Ans, students have reported scarcely any difficulties, demonstrating the platform's user-friendly design."
"For our STEM courses, the instructors value being able to use variables to generate unique question values for each student and unique homework sets."
“It’s a very intuitive and efficient way to organise your exams. It can save you a lot of time in corrections and archiving. I would surely recommend it!“
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