Schedule exams

Exams lives in Scheduling, under Exams. You work one exam window at a time: pick it in the header. Its steps run left to right: Preparation, Rooms, Plan, Duties and Readiness. Each step says under its name what it still holds.

1. Set up the window

• Set up window gives it a name, the period whose classes it examines, its dates and its time zone. Every time on the page is in that zone.
• Planning settings say how exams are spread: the preset (Learner load is the default), the daily maximum, the minimum rest, days without exams and the clash-sitting periods.
• Rooms is the window's room pool: the rooms exams may use, with their exam seats. Where exams are also sat elsewhere, the window names its exam centres.

2. Say which courses need an exam

Preparation lists every Section of the period. A Section is Ready when it is known whether it has a timed exam, and how long and in what format. Until then it reads Needs clarification (or No learners yet when nobody is registered).

• Default requirements are rules by course code that every course without its own requirement takes. Write * for any characters: COMP* is a subject, COMP-3* its 300 level, *-5* every 500-level course, * every course. The most specific pattern wins.
• Save the rules, check In this window (how many courses take a default, which keep their own, which no rule matches), then Apply. Applying again later picks up new courses and changed rules.
• A course or Section that someone declared keeps its own requirement. To set one by hand, select Sections and choose Declare, or use Declare for all for everything the list shows.

3. Plan the sittings

• Plan with the engine starts a run that builds, improves or repairs the window's plan within its time limit. Nothing changes until you Adopt this plan; What adopting changes shows the sittings moved and the learners affected first.
• You can still place or move a sitting yourself with Schedule and Try a move.
• Learners with two exams at the same time, or too many in a day, get a clash sitting in one of the clash-sitting periods.

4. Check Readiness

Readiness lists every saved sitting with what it still needs: seats for every learner, rooms held, papers, invigilation cover and support arrangements. Work down it until each sitting is Ready.

5. Individual timings

When Support approves extra time or breaks for a learner, the office records it as an individual timing entry and confirms it. It then applies to all the learner's exams it covers.

6. Publish to learners

The header says whether learners can see the window, and how many sittings are saved. Until you publish, a learner's My exams says their exam timetable is being prepared.

• Change sets when learners see it: now, or from a date and time. You can tell learners the date the timetable comes out.
• From then each learner sees the date, time and length of their own exams, and their room once rooms are shown.
• Once learners see a window its date can't move later.

If it did not work

• Default requirements or Change is missing: you need the exam planning access for this scope (setting when learners see a window is a separate access). Ask your Education administrator.
• Apply says something changed since you looked: someone saved rules, a requirement or the period's classes changed meanwhile. Check the new numbers and apply again.
• A course still reads Needs clarification after applying: no rule matches its code (the sheet lists examples under Without a rule). Add a rule, or declare it in Preparation.
• A learner says My exams shows no dates: check the header. While it says Not visible to learners yet, learners only read that their timetable is being prepared. See also Find your way in Education.