Exam laptops and access to PDF question papers

[enjay]

How do you folks manage access to digital copies of exam papers for use with screen readers?

 

We used domain-joined laptops with exam logons and a shared folder containing the PDF of the exam paper, but login times became an issue (sometimes our accounts decide they want to take 10+ minutes to log in). We then moved to workgroup laptops with the exam paper on a share on the exams "server" PC. This worked okay but we're finding it isn't scalable to the number of students now needing this provision - the connection limitation on workgroups means we've had to create multiple shared folders, but also we find that laptops sometimes just don't fancy playing ball and need some intervention (rebooting, waiting, hitting refresh multiple times, etc.) and due to the number of laptops in use this isn't something the invigilators can manage on top of all the other exam room prep. We have also tried USB memory sticks, but again this is no longer scalable to the number of candidates in "real" exams where we can only access the paper 1 hour before the start of the exam (for internal mocks, we could prepare the USBs days or weeks in advance).

 

Is there anything we can do to remove/reduce the number of connection issues in our workgroup set-up?

 

Is there a different way to handle this access which would be more light-touch and scalable?

[flipthebit]

Log the laptops in with the exam domain accounts well ahead of time, then unlock them when the exam starts rather than a full login? Don't put the PDF into the shared folder until 1 hour before the exam starts.

[enjay]

53 minutes ago, flipthebit said:

Log the laptops in with the exam domain accounts well ahead of time, then unlock them when the exam starts rather than a full login? Don't put the PDF into the shared folder until 1 hour before the exam starts.

 

We tried that, but the exam domain laptops would sometimes drop their mapped drives mid-exam. This was more of a problem for students saving work though, if they just need the PDF file, they could copy it locally at the start of the exam.

[flipthebit]

How's the wi-fi in that/those locations? Maybe adjust/replace that to allow more/faster connections?

[enjay]

WiFi is fine, although it has recently come to light that the switch sometimes quietly reboots itself so it is possible that was the issue...

[thimon]

We have domain WiFi connected laptops, which auto sign into the same exams account when switched on to save on setup time, this is a very much locked down account. We use Multi Commander which we can run as admin to access a restricted file share where the exam papers are saved to, we then copy the exam paper(s) onto the Desktop. 

Edited March 17 by thimon