Exams Manager
Making Exams Management Easy
Specialised higher education software for examinations management
Databee Exams Manager is a system designed to manage every aspect of an Examinations Office within a University or Higher Education Institution.
Our product is uniquely designed for Examination Offices by a team with specialist knowledge of software design and examinations.
COVID-19 Functionality
During 2019 and 2020, Databee added new functionality to help Universities provide services throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. These included:
- New options to allocate online exams with flexible timing to allow exams to be available for an extended period of time
- Improved personal timetables for students
- Flexible time details for e-exams with flexible timing.
- Option to provide details about your e-exam environments and special instructions, including URLs for students to use to access the exam.
- Major improvements to the exam request process to provide additional flexibility and ease of use for academic and school staff.
- Improved integration options with API improvements and new spreadsheet export options
- Ability to track and approve e-exams stored in other systems
- Option to record URLs for exam content and exam supervision services for each exam session (including alternative arrangements with unique content or supervision requirements)
- Include URLs in Supervisor rosters
- Import student exam attendance data from external systems
- A new website for supervision staff to use during live exams to:
- view upcoming and in-progress exam sessions
- record student attendance (available live to academic staff)
- record incidents
Exam Allocation
Simple automatic and manual scheduling tool to help process and organise your exams.
Exam Allocation
Databee Exams Manager has a simple yet powerful graphic user interface for exam timetabling. The timetabling process is integrated with the exam request process so all of the necessary information relating to each exam is already available while allocating your exams.
Users can switch between automatic and manual exam allocation to suit their processes and create the best possible timetable.
Manual exam allocation is done through a simple chart that displays all of the times at which you can run an exam.
In the chart below, each potential exam session is represented by one coloured box. Blue boxes represent times when all of the students in the current exam are available. The darker blue shades indicate that the students are available but some of the students already have an exam that day. The yellow and brown boxes indicate that students in the current exam are already sitting exams at that time. Grey boxes indicate that the examiner requested that the exam not run at that time.
To allocate the exam to a certain time a user simply clicks on one of the coloured boxes (preferably a light blue one with a high number).
Automated and advanced options can greatly speed up the allocation process:
Supervisors
Automated rostering by skill level, online forms and training, timesheet tracking.
Supervisors
Databee Exams Manager has extensive functionality to help manage your exam Supervisors (also known as Invigilators). This includes:
Online Forms
- Let your supervisors enter their availability for each exam event
- Let your supervisors view and accept their rosters online
Allocation
- Supervisors are rated to ensure skilled supervisors are balanced across your venues
- Automatic and manual allocation processes can be intermixed. Many users manually allocate their preferred ‘chief’ supervisors, then automatically allocate all other supervisors
- Automatic gender balancing ensures at least one supervisor of each gender in each venue
- 'Personality Clashes' avoid having incompatible supervisors in the same room
Timesheets
- Print photo ID Cards for your supervisors
- Scan ID Cards to record attendance at start and end of shifts
- Export timesheet data to your HR system
Automation
- Let your supervisors view and record key information during exams with our iPad app
- Let your supervisors do your barcode scanning during your exam sessions
Training Sessions
- Exams Manager is complete with a built-in online training tool that allows you to design your own courses/quizzes
- Roster supervisors to Training Sessions
- Barcode scan attendance at training sessions
Alternative Adjustments
Manage alternative conditions and schedule alternative exams with reliable, easy processes.
Alternative Exam Conditions
Databee Exams Manager helps to manage your alternative exams by:
- Automatic daily import of alternative condition data
- Easy manual and automatic scheduling of alternative exams
- Personalised timetables for students
- Management of required equipment and materials
- Automatic calculation of additional time
- Integrated supervisor management
- QA process to ensure no students are missed
- Extensive reporting
The screenshot below show the manual allocation process. The user is required to select an available time and venue from the list of available venues:
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Correspondence
Databee Exams Manager has a built in correspondence system. The correspondence system allows users to send bulk and individual correspondence to:
- Students
- Staff
- Distance Exam Centres
- Exam Supervisors
Correspondence can be sent as email, SMS/text message or printed.
Exams Manager’s Standard Letters function is a built in ‘merge’ document system to create personalised bulk email and letters. It doesn’t require you to create data files or do additional data entry as you might in a word processor. Exams Manager’s merge feature works with the data you already have to send personalised messages to your clients.
A history of all correspondence is kept automatically. The history is shown on the relevant pages for each Staff Member, Student, Supervisor and Exam Centre. You can even record notes of any correspondence that occurs outside Exams Manager.
Personalised Exam Timetables
Publish exam timetables, including online personalised timetables for students and staff.
Personalised Timetables
At most universities almost all services to students are personalised. Students receive individual confirmation of their enrolment, their results and their graduation. Databee Exams Manager can make it easy to add this personal level of service to student exam timetables.
Databee Exams Manager can create personalised timetables — including alternative and distance arrangements — for each of your students and send these timetables as individual emails or publish them online.
Online publication of timetables is all done within Exams Manager – your staff will not need to use any other systems to publish your exam timetables.
This image shows a personalised timetable for a student with one alternative and one normal exam. Details such as Seat No, Venue and Duration are all optional.
Distance Exams
Students and staff can nominate exam centres online with automated management system.
Distance Exams
Databee Exams Manager will help to streamline your distance exam processes by:
- Automatically calculating the distance between your students and nearby Exam Centres
- Publishing your list of Exam Centres online for students to view
- Allowing students to nominate an Exam Centre online
- Automatically calculating the time difference in other states and countries
- Managing correspondence with Students and Exam Centres
- Scheduling your distance exams
- Providing a wide range of reports
- Barcode scanning receipt of completed scripts and student attendance
The ‘Distance Exam Cover Sheet’, shown below, is a comprehensive report to accompany packages of exams going to Exam Centres.
Receipt of the completed exam scripts and confirmation of the Student’s attendance are both recorded quickly and easily by scanning barcodes.
Websites
Websites for students, staff, supervisors, distance centres, and other institutions.
Websites
Databee Exams Manager includes several websites which allow:
- Academic and schools staff to request exams
- Secure Exam Paper Upload
- Students to view personalised exam timetables
- Exam supervisors to enter their availability details
- Exam supervisors to view and accept their roster
- Distance students to nominate a distance exam centre
- Distance exam centres to update their contact and availability details
- Disability support staff to request exams with special conditions
All websites can be set to automatically open and close. This can be done by exams staff without any assistance from IT services.
Websites for student timetables and supervisor roster are designed to display beautifully on both desktop computers and mobile devices.
All of Exams Manager's websites include customisable text and various options to personalise each site.
Exams Manager also includes a RESTful API for integration with other websites and systems.
Exams Manager has every process covered
Ease of Use
Simple menu helps new users get started easily, with plenty of shortcuts and advanced features.
Ease of Use
The intuitive user interface allows users to perform complex tasks with ease. Many repetitive tasks are made easier and faster through simple automated processes.
Its simple menu system helps new users get started easily, yet it has plenty of shortcuts and advanced features for experienced users.
The integrated documentation system with 'Help Icons', links directly to help pages about each heading.
Mobility
Databee Exams Manager has a suite of interfaces, including iPad, websites and Desktop.
Mobility
Databee Exams Manager has a suite of interfaces including:
- Desktop application for exams staff
- Websites for staff, students and other stakeholders
- iPad and iPhone apps for exams staff and exam supervisors
The mobile apps allow users to:
- View students, timetables, supervisor rosters and more
- Record incidents
- Scan barcodes
- Record supervisor attendance
Flexibilty
Flexible workflows that empower users to work the way they need to for their own business processes.
Flexibility
With each new implementation we learn new ways that clients want to use Exams Manager. In each of our 20 implementations so far we have added new functionality to Exams Manager without any additional costs to the client.
We don't just offer one way to solve a problem. We offer flexible workflows that empower our clients to work the way they need to.
This flexibility is part of our core philosophy and is present in all of Exams Manager's key features. We also keep adding to our functionality, with dozens of exciting new features added each year.
Reports
Exams Manager includes more than 150 reports and charts, most of which can be run with various criteria. Reports include:
- Exam Pack Covers
- Completed Script Receipts
- Seating Lists
- Packing Lists
- Printing Requisitions
- Supervisor Checklist
- Packing Labels
- Distance Exam Centre Reports
- Special Exam Conditions
- Exam Materials
- Venue Usage Lists for Security and Facilities
- Management
Reports are regularly added as Databee and our clients come up with new ideas.
Exam Paper Printing
Manage every step of the exam paper printing process, with access for print suppliers.
Exam Paper Printing
Databee Exams Manager can help manage your printing process by:
- Create Print Requests (Requisitions) to be sent to your printing service
- Allow your staff, or printing staff, to download exam papers from the secure server
- Automatically calculating the number of spare copies needed for each venue
- Creating reports for each print request
- Barcode scanning receipt of printed exam papers
You can also allow your printing service to have direct access to the Databee Exams Manager system so that they can manage the whole printing process themselves. Reports are available for you to easily track their progress.
Exam Paper Uploads
Secure exam paper uploads available for by selected academic and school staff.
Exam Paper Uploads
Exam papers can be uploaded by selected academic and school staff. Your exam papers are kept secure by industry standard end-to-end encryption.
Exam papers can be kept secure, with only exams office and/or printing office staff allowed to download them
or
Exam papers can be viewed and approved online by academic staff in an intutitive, customisable workflow process.
Both processes use mutli-factor authentication to verify the identity of staff allowed to view or download exam papers.
Student Attendance
Record student attendance electronically with barcodes scanning.
Student Attendance
Barcode scanning can be used to record student attendance. This can be done by scanning barcodes on student attendance sheets.
A website allows academic and general staff to view student attendance immediately after it is scanned.
Scanning student attendance sheets is an alternative to scanning student ID cards. One of the key logistical challenges of scanning student ID cards is having a large number of mobile barcode scanners at your exam venues. Scanning the barcodes on these attendance sheets can be done at any time from a PC, laptop or iPad.
Many universities are already scanning these barcodes for every student who attends an exam (there are some clever shortcuts which make this quicker than you might think). The time they invest in this is repaid by not having to confirm attendance for school staff.
Most Exams Offices would receive dozens or hundreds of requests to confirm exam attendance for certain students. Using this system, school staff have access to the live attendance data. This improves the service to your clients while reducing staff workload during a peak time.
Attendance lists can also be produced with student photos.
In 2016, an Australian University conducted a survey of Databee Exams Manager Users. The survey assessed how long the Universities spent on key exam tasks before and after they implemented Databee Exams Manager. The results were surprising even for us!
Clients have experienced significant benefits in terms of time, cost and quality assurance.
Before Implementing
Databee Exams Manager
After Implementing
Databee Exams Manager
4-5 weeks / 4+ staff
2-3 weeks / 2.0 staff
The full results of the survey are available here.
For privacy reasons the names of all the universities have been anonymised.
Request a Demonstration
Request a demonstration to see Exams Manager in action
What Our Clients Say
Incorporating Exams Manager into our business processes is the best move we’ve made. Being able to access all data in one product has streamlined and improved our exam management process. At all times Databee staff were responsive to feedback, they tailored the system to meet our requirements and worked collaboratively with our team. We are extremely happy with Exams Manager, the functionality it provides and the results it has delivered for our team and university.
Michelle Brereton
Manager: Exams, Results and Scholarships University of South Australia
Databee was our product of choice as it covered the exam work cycle end-to-end and the product displayed a good understanding of the unique nature of exams. It was also user friendly with excellent interfaces, key requirements for any new system being installed at Charles Sturt. Databee really works and the customer care was second to none, they stay in touch, encourage feedback and respond quickly and effectively.
Databee’s Exams Manager System is very user-friendly and provides far more functionality than was initially expected. There have been extensive improvements and efficiencies across all areas of exam operations, enabling the provision of a much better service to our students and staff.