University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Grainger College of Engineering
Computer-Based Testing Facility

Missed/Conflict Exams/COVID Quarantine

If a student misses an exam or needs to retake an exam for some reason then there are multiple options to handle this. Which strategy is appropriate will depend on factors such as whether missing the exam was the student’s fault (e.g., overslept) or outside their control, and whether this was a short-term interruption (e.g., fire alarm went off 3 minutes after the exam started) versus a long-term problem (e.g., sick for an entire week, so making up exams may only add more pressure).

Types of Conflicts

For conflict exam requests, there are several options:

  1. Exempt the student from the exam. Common strategies are to compute the total exam average with this exam removed, or to replace this exam score with the highest of their other exam scores. This is a good option for cases where the student is unable to take the exam for many days and so postponing the exam may cause an undue workload when they return.
  2. Give the student a “take-home” exam without proctoring. This requires minimal coordination and is very accommodating for the student. This is a good option when the student has already been negatively impacted by missing the exam through no fault of their own.
  3. Use a TA to proctor the student’s exam via Zoom. This allows great flexibility in proctoring arrangements.
  4. Reschedule with the CBTF through PrairieTest: Depending on the circumstances involved different steps may need to be taken to reschedule the exam.  Please review the scenarios below for more details.

Rescheduling Scenarios and Requirements

  1. Student requests an extension in advance: If a student requests an extension before the exam window, course staff can give an override through PrairieTest to extend the original testing window.
  2. Student missed an exam: If a student missed a scheduled exam, they must first delete the original reservation before they can make a new reservation.  Students should visit a CBTF lab and talk to a proctor to have their missed reservation deleted. If the original testing window has closed, course staff will also need to give an override through PrairieTest to extend the original testing window. Please note that if the original testing window is still open, students can delete their original reservation and reschedule by talking to a proctor in a CBTF lab.
  3. Student started but did not complete an exam: If a student started but did not complete an exam, course staff will need to first either re-open or create a new instance of an exam in PrairieLearn.  Next, course staff will need to delete any existing reservations for the missed exam.  Finally, course staff will need to give an override to extend the original testing window.

Adding an Exam Override

If a student needs an extended exam window, complete an override by following the process outlined below.

  1. Find your course in PrairieTest.
  2. Choose the exam that will need an override.
  3. Click the "Overrides" tab.
  4. Click "Add override" and enter the students UID including @illinois.edu.
  5. Enter the new date range.
  6. Inform the student to make a new reservation.

Course-Administered Conflicts

Please see our CBTF Best Practices resources if you would like to administer an exam in the style of CBTF Online.

Follow the best practices for configuring an exception exam in your platform. This is not dependent on the CBTF or PrairieTest.

PrairieLearn: The PrairieLearn documentation has a section on setting up remote exams with a few students outside the CBTF.