Unique Exams: Designing assessments for integrity and fairness

Abstract: Educators have faced new challenges in effective course assessment during the recent, unprecedented shift to remote online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. In place of typical proctored, timed exams, instructors must now rethink their methodology for assessing course-level learning goals. Are exams appropriate---or even feasible---in this new online, open-internet learning environment? In this experience paper, we discuss the unique exams framework: our framework for upholding exam integrity and student privacy. In our Probability for Computer Scientists Course at an R1 University, we developed autogenerated, unique exams where each student had the same four problem skeletons with unique numeric variations per problem. Without changing the process of the traditional exam, unique exams provide a layer of security for both students and instructors about exam reliability for any classroom environment---in-person or online. In addition to sharing our experience designing unique exams, we also present a simple end-to-end tool and example question templates for different CS subjects that other instructors can adapt to their own courses.