Exam Ecosystem | Understanding & Implementation

Introduction

When we look at Schools/Colleges/University admissions, there is always a focus on admitting bright/quality students. To identify the quality, they deploy different evaluation measures right from an Exam to gauge the student's intellectual level to the GD/PI process for evaluating the candidate's personality.

While the GD/PI processes are driven in-house completely, the Exam is usually conducted via known partners say Mettl, Pearson VUE, etc., or at times via in-house solutions.

What is Exam Integration?

The Exam integration process aims to provide an integrated solution thereby ensuring a seamless experience for the students and enabling them to Schedule the exam or Reschedule, Download Hall Tickets and/or Results, or Attempt the exam from the Student Admission Portal.

Components of Exam Ecosystem

Exam Scheduling

1. As soon as the student becomes eligible for the exam, his Demographic Data (DD), as well as Exam Information (EI), is pushed to the Exam Partner. DD contains information to uniquely identify the student (e.g. Name, Application Number, Location, etc.) and EI contains information around the exam he is eligible for (e.g. Exam Name, Exam Slot he can select, Attempt, etc.). 
2. The student gets to see an option to “Book Exam Slot” on his dashboard which Single signs-on (SSO) him to the exam portal. Here, based on the Exam mode, say Online or Offline, the student will be asked to select Date and Time, and/or Venue (completely controlled by Exam Partner).

Admit Card Generation

Once the student has booked his slot, the exam partner shares exam slot-related information (like Date, Time, and/or Venue) to Meritto via the Modify Appointment API. The student will be able to download the Admit card carrying his slot information.

Exam Rescheduling

1. At times, a student might not be able to appear for the Exam on the scheduled date/time or venue. In such cases, the student gets to see an option to Reschedule his Exam within a specific duration say 72 hours prior (Duration is configurable) to his scheduled exam. Considering its impact on infrastructure planned, Institutes may opt for Reschedule payment to be made by the student.
2. When the student clicks on the Reschedule Exam, he will SSO to Exam portal where he can change his slot. The updated slot booking details are pushed to Meritto via Modify Appointment API and the same, starts reflecting in the students’ admit card.

Exam Retake

1. Exam Integration provides enablement of a smooth and seamless process allowing students to take more exam attempts. Herein, the institute needs to define the number of Retake attempts, Trigger Point i.e. when the candidate can see the Exam Retake option on the Student's dashboard and can define Dynamic Fees for each attempt
2. With real-time APIs, Exam Partners would know each candidate's authorization. Thus, facilitating further processes like Slot Booking, Exam Attempt etc.

Scorecard Generation

Once the candidate has attempted the exam, the exam partner shares exam result-related information (like Marks Obtained, Total Marks) to Meritto via the Result Notification API. The student will be able to download the Scorecard carrying his result information.