CAT supportsite: Digital assessment with Remindo

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CAT supportsite: Digital assessment with Remindo

Educate-it > Remindo support > Manuals > Remote assessment > Remote assessment – FAQ

Remote assessment

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Remote assessment – FAQ

This page lists frequently asked questions and answers regarding remote assessment (both assessment from home and assessment from students’ own devices at a UU location). The FAQ is divided into three question themes:

  • Practical/technical questions
  • Educational questions
  • Monitoring and fraud

  • Important

    We recommend using the latest versions of the Chrome or Firefox browsers to ensure the best functionality of Remindo exams. Do not use Safari or Microsoft Edge because they may cause the display of figures or other questions to not function properly. Students may switch to another browser in case they did not start their exam in Chrome or Firefox.

    Please make sure students save their questions before switching to a different browser; Remindo notifies the student of this.

    Microsoft does not support Internet Explorer any longer and we therefore strongly disadvise using this browser.

  • Practical/technical questions about the remote use of Remindo



    Yes, Remindo allows both formative and summative exams to be taken from a student’s personal computer or laptop.


    Students can log into Remindo via remindo.uu.nl.

    A complete student manual regarding assessment at home can be found here.



    Providing technical support for remote assessment is difficult, but possible to a limited extent.

    Here are a few standard solutions to problems students can run into:

    • Use the latest versions of Chrome or Firefox. It is possible to switch to another browser if you have already begun the exam, but make sure to save your answers before switching to the other browser.
    • Restart the computer and try to start the exam.

    More information on what to do in case the internet connection is unstable can be found later in this FAQ.

    A complete student instruction on remote assessment can be found here.

    You can also make arrangements with your faculty key-user beforehand regarding technical support during the exam, if needed.



    Any type of computer or laptop can be used to access Remindo, if you use the correct browser. You cannot make use of Safari on Apple computers, for example. We advise students to use the latest versions of Chrome or Firefox, regardless of the type or brand of computer or laptop they are using.


    Yes, they do, based on their contact and the faculty rules regarding extra time on exams.

    The student receives a notification from Remindo when no Internet connection has been detected. During the exam, Remindo indicates that the student can continue without an Internet connection.

    Remindo can only close the exam when it’s connected to the Internet. Students have to wait for an Internet connection when they want to close the exam, or when time has elapsed, to be able to end it. If this is not the case, Remindo has to remain open until a connection is available.

    In case the Internet connection has been recovered and a student wants to end the exam (starting point: all questions have been answered), the notification ‘Send answers’ appears. Only when that notification disappears, students can actually close the exam.

    In case of problems that cannot be solved quickly, the instructor has some options:

    • In the case of problems, give the student extra time to settle matters and otherwise give them adjournment.
    • In the case of unsolvable problems: report them to the examination board, and they  will take further steps.

    Good to know: If Remindo is not connected to the internet for more than 2 minutes during the test, it will be logged in the action log, that you can find using this icon. It is located after the name of the exam in Planning.

    The following windows pops up (this is an example):


    An exam review in Remindo can be done at home. You can make sure approval is needed for the students to start reviewing. You can can also enable students to comment digitally. You can answer these comments. The biggest difference between reviewing online and via a Chromebook is that the questions could be made available big difference with access to Chromebooks ise that questions could be leaked.

    An alternative could be to do the review later. First ask if this is allowed according to the exam regulations.

    For more information about reviewing, check out this page. Or contact your key-user.


  • Educational questions



    It is an unwritten rule to create exams with closed questions when administering the exam to a large group of students, but this can cause issues regarding surveillance and fraud when students are taking their test from home.

    It is generally advised to create an open-book exam instead, or to pull questions from a large question bank and randomize the exam for each student.

    Always consider whether the exam matches the course’s learning goals, or whether an alternative form assessment is better suited.


    It is important to keep in mind that your entire course, including the assessment, needs constructive alignment: the learning objectives are aligned with the learning activities of the course. Then connect the assessment to the learning objectives and the learning activities, also in terms of level? A different test form is not always an option, because the learning activities were aimed at the already established test form. So students are not prepared for this.

    If you want to use a different test format, keep in mind that the level of the test continues to match the level of the learning objectives of the course and the associated activities. Then prepare the students for the new test form they can expect. Keep in mind that students have resources at their disposal.



    You can make an estimate of how long answering a question would take. Students must have enough time to answer the questions. Guidelines can help with that, but there is no golden rule. You can pilot this. How much time does it take for students to find an answer (you don’t want to measure how fast they can write)? As a domain expert, you can better estimate how the above applies to your domain.

    Indication: For a test with four open questions in Educational Sciences, there is 2-2.5 hours. 8 hours is very long. If they must search literature for answers, they need time to do so. If most knowledge should be ready, you don’t have to give it all day.



    Here are some documents with more information on this:

    (Made available by O&T)



    Educational Consultancy & professional Development has drawn up a document (in form of a web page) that explains what you can consider when organizing an online review.

  • Monitoring and fraud with home exams



    A home exam can bring the following risks:

    • Students can consult resources at home, which is something you have no control over.
    • Students can work together, both physically and online (via computer or smartphone).
    • The questions in your home exam will be out on the streets and can therefore not be re-used in future exams


    With home exams, you can make the exchange of answers to questions among students more difficult by shuffling questions and/or answer options in an exam. A student then receives the questions and/or answer options in a different order than fellow students, making exchange more difficult. However, you cannot prevent it 100% this way.

    Changing questions and/or answer options is possible in Remindo. See the following pages for more information:



    Remindo has a link with Ouriginal’s plagiarism check software. You can find more information on the use of Ouriginal here.


    You can take the following precautions in the case of an exam with SPSS:

    • Provide each student with their own data set, and possible their own research question.
    • Hold a discussion with each student after the exam, or ask students to write a short justification about why they made certain choices.

    Note: It is more difficult to commit fraud with SPSS exams. When students want to exchange syntaxes, they also need to understand them (which requires a certain skill level). If you try to copy syntaxes without considering what you’re copying, you often make mistakes. Research assignments/papers containing analyses are also often done from home and marked the same as an exam.



    Questions about the use of online proctoring can be directed at proctoring@uu.nl.

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