Case Study
The University of Notre Dame Runs In-Place Digital Exams in Tutorial Rooms
The University of Notre Dame Australia partnered with Cadmus to deliver secure in-place digital exams, achieving ease-of-use satisfaction and zero academic integrity breaches—even in clinical and tutorial settings.
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Highlights
0
Breaches of academic integrity
71.8%
Would use Cadmus again
77%
Found time management easy during the exam
The University of Notre Dame Australia (UNDA) adopted Cadmus’s digital in-place exam functionality in tutorial rooms and clinical settings following concerns about academic integrity due to the rise in generative AI use by students.
The University piloted the solution in the School of Nursing and Midwifery across nine courses, 2,337 students and 109 educators.
The trial resulted in a positive student experience with 82% of students finding the Cadmus platform easy to use and zero breaches of academic integrity.
“Using Cadmus Exams with locked-down browser functionality changed the use of generative AI from 100 students to 0 students for me this semester. It has tested the students’ knowledge in a fair and equitable way, and has reflected what the individual has studied, retained and learnt over the semester.”
UNDA’s in-person digital exams challenge
UNDA was reforming assessment, with a particular focus on reducing academic integrity breaches. With rising use of generative AI by students, the University wanted to proactively minimise cases of academic misconduct in exams through educative and preventive measures, as well as detect cases after submission. Importantly, it wanted to do this in a way that also enhanced the student experience.
To achieve this, the University partnered with Cadmus to deliver digital, in-place secure exams in tutorial rooms and remote clinical spaces in the School of Nursing and Midwifery. The trial encompassed nine courses, 2,337 students and 109 educators.
UNDA and Cadmus’s in-place digital exams solution
Cadmus and UNDA worked together to trial Cadmus’s secure in-place digital exams solution in the University by:
- Redesigning and transforming traditional assessments to better scaffold students through the process of understanding academic literacy, including academic integrity practices.
- Introducing locked-down browser functionality to prevent students in exams from accessing prohibited computer files and web resources, and taking screenshots.
- Providing automated academic support to students as they work through Cadmus, supporting them to complete their work authentically and understand how to avoid academic misconduct.
- Using Cadmus progress analytics to discover and nudge students who haven’t started assessments, encouraging early engagement and minimising the chances of misconduct.
- Monitoring student assessment construction behaviour using real-time academic integrity assurance analytics to provide clear indicators highlighting the authenticity of each student’s work and supporting cases where submissions raised academic misconduct concerns.
“The introduction of Cadmus exams had minimal impact in terms of having to change what was already in place. We used existing facilities, timetables and staff—the introduction of Cadmus enabled us to have access to the features we required which allowed a rapid rollout to a small group. We required a fast start-up/short turnaround time to get first assessments up and running all while getting buy-in from staff. The Cadmus team were incredibly accommodating and amenable when it came to working with the staff directly to ensure they were exam ready.”
How UNDA implemented in-place digital exams
Selecting exams:
- UNDA chose courses in the School of Nursing and Midwifery, along with courses that had experienced increased academic integrity breaches in previous semesters due to the use of generative AI.
Selecting venues:
- Most mid-semester and end-semester tests were held during tutorial times in tutorial rooms. If students were unable to attend the week’s tutorials, a deferred test was scheduled in a similar room on campus.
- For the formal on-campus midwifery exams, university spaces with adequate access to power and Wi-Fi were arranged for students to bring their own devices.
- For students on placement in clinical settings, program coordinators organised invigilated sessions in those settings, ensuring equity in exam experience for the entire cohort.
Delivering exams:
- Academics and their teaching teams were responsible for managing delivery of their exams but central teams provided room scheduling support for formal exams.
How Cadmus supported university implementation
End-to-end examination assessment design and setup
The Cadmus Academic Team managed the exam design and setup process on behalf of UNDA academics—reducing their workload and optimising the platform environment to support student success. This included creating multiple versions of the tests/exams to allow for randomisation of questions and generating access codes so students could access the appropriate tests and exams.
Academic and examination team platform training
The Cadmus team delivered group and 1:1 consultations on best-practice approaches to enhancing teaching and learning quality in an online environment using Cadmus, as well as ensuring the highest level of academic integrity.
Pre-exam student training and communication
Cadmus prepared practice exams and training materials for students to ensure they were familiar with the Cadmus exams environment and lock-down browser functionality before going into a live exam environment, which reduced stress and anxiety.
Technical training and assurance
Cadmus thoroughly tested systems before university exam periods, as well as conducting ongoing student user testing to minimise any risk of technical issues in exams.
Academic Integrity Analytics Training
The Cadmus Academic Team delivered comprehensive training on harnessing its Academic Integrity Assurance Analytics to detect unusual construction behaviours, browser locations, unexpected logins accessing the exam and the number of exams logins in conjunction with the security of locked-browser functionality. This assured the highest level of academic integrity during exam sittings.
“It was great to be able to differentiate between students who simply copied and pasted their entire assessments from generative AI from those who were using generative AI to assist with spelling and grammar. This was made possible through Cadmus’s academic integrity assurance analytics, which monitor the process of student assessment construction, not the end submission.”
Outcomes and benefits
Cadmus takes a best-practice, research-based approach to the pedagogical benefits of its platform. The success of this approach—and its partnership model—can be seen in the results from the UNDA trial, based on 619 students.
- Ease of use: 82.2% of students agreed it was easy to understand how to complete the assessment.
- Time management: 77% of students said they found it easy to track and manage their time during the exam.
- Satisfaction: 71.8% of students said they would like to use Cadmus again.
- Exam features: 77.3% of students agreed they had all the features they needed to complete the exam.
- Academic integrity: 0% breaches of academic integrity occurred during exam sittings when supported with locked browser and academic integrity assurance analytics.
“It was simple and easy to open and then complete my exam. I also like the simple look of the software as it makes it easier to focus and doesn’t get overwhelming.”
Cadmus’s highly effective academic integrity measures enabled UNDA to reduce cases of academic misconduct, without having a negative impact on the student experience and student privacy.
In contrast to proctoring software, the Cadmus platform promoted academic integrity through:
- Scaffolded assessment design using Cadmus templates.
- Educative nudges, referencing support, integrated resources and a closed-book browser environment providing point-of-need support for students.
- Whole cohort and individual student academic integrity assurance analytics, supporting academics to look at the process of student assessment construction and providing an assurance score for the work presented for grading.
- The Lockdown Browser provided a high level of security by stopping students navigating away from their exams when using university or personal laptops.
- Access to video reconstruction reports to play back students’ assessment construction and investigate if academic misconduct had occurred.
- Educators shared individual activity reports and analytic dashboards back to students to help them understand their own exam working process and how to improve it, and the connection to academic integrity outcomes.
“When it comes to data and analytics to support academic integrity assurance, the access to evidence within Cadmus and the speed of processing the evidence is exceptional. Having the in-app academic integrity assurance analytics that look at student working behaviour during assessment and playback videos that show the end-to-end reconstruction process is really helpful. Combined, they make it very clear to understand if an authentic working process has taken place—the evidence is really solid.”
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