SUMS & SUPC Exam Software Demonstration Series

Earlier this year, SUMS Consulting in partnership with SUPC, ran a popular series of events on timetabling systems and procurement. Time was short in those sessions, and we were only able to cover functionality relating to timetabling. Suppliers and universities were also interested in demonstrating, and understanding respectively, functionality relating to exams and exam scheduling.

Context

Over the past 24 months there has significant change in the platforms available to institutions for exam and teaching scheduling. The supplier market has seen a combination of consolidation, product expansion and new market entrants. Additionally, many institutions are pursuing a cloud-first systems strategy. These changes have led to a number of institutions thinking about changing their platforms.

The main suppliers for exams scheduling solutions are those who provide timetabling solutions or student record systems. However, it is not the case that all universities use the same exams platform as is available from their timetabling platform supplier. 38 institutions responded to our 2023 survey on timetabling and exams platforms in preparation to the timetabling event series.

We asked the institutions about the platforms that they used:

• 20 used the same platform for timetabling and exams
• 8 used their SRS platform for exam scheduling with a separate timetabling platform
• 6 had no specific exam scheduling platform, but did have a timetabling platform
• 1 institution used one timetabling platform for timetabling and a different one for exam scheduling
• 1 institution used their SRS for both timetabling and exam scheduling
• others had home grown solutions.

We asked whether institutions would include particular exams functionality in any tender for a new timetabling system. Exam scheduling was a popular choice with 20 respondents saying they would include it (10 would maybe include and 8 would exclude it), but only 3 respondents would include exam paper management (16 would exclude and 19 would maybe include).

The Event Series

We’ve invited the major players to demonstrate functionality related to exams and exam scheduling. Together we’ll explore functionality from a range of perspectives:

• expert users – highly specialised schedulers and exams professionals. Responsible for exams planning, automated and manual scheduling, and what-if scenarios
• devolved users – periodic users of the system from across the institution. Responsible for submitting data, making updates, and viewing reports
• end users – students, staff and externals accessing published data.

With the help of a friendly Examinations Manager, we have compiled a set of user stories for the suppliers to use to demonstrate functionality. There were a lot of different ideas for user stories, far too many for a 40-minute slot so we’ve grouped them into “essential” and “desirable” with the suppliers deciding which desirable elements they want to demonstrate after they’ve done the essential elements.

The essential user stories are:

1. constraints & manual scheduling
2. autoscheduling & multi-exam venues
3. special arrangements for students
4. invigilators & reporting
5. online exams

The desirable user stories include:

1. what if scenario
2. personal timetables
3. exam paper workflow
4. exam information upload
5. PEP information upload

The sessions will be delivered as webinars and will be recorded.  We will make the recordings available to sector colleagues who register for the events, who are either not able to attend for some reason or who wish to listen again.  Recordings will not be made available publicly.

Register now!

Please click here to register for the events or click on the supplier name below. You will need to register for each event that you wish to attend.  Registrations are open to colleagues from institutions which are members of SUMS or members of UKUPC.  Further information and links will be distributed to delegates in the week before each event.

4 October             Celcat

18 October           Berger Levrault

25 October           EventMap

1 November        No event scheduled as there’s a timetabling conference at the                                                            University of Manchester

8 November         TimeEdit

22 November       TechOne

Please share this news story with colleagues if you think they might be interested in attending.