Examination Management

The Examination Management System provides examination printing and seat assignment services. It also allows candidates to look up their seating information for managed examinations.

Introduction

Instead of submitting paper master copies for printing, instructors upload a PDF directly through a secure upload form. All the information required by the standard cover page template is automatically written onto the cover of the PDF by the system.

Instructors have the option of assigning their students to specific seats. If this is chosen, each examination paper will be pre-printed with the name, ID, and seat location. Candidates will see their exact seat location on the Web. A PDF will also be made available that can be printed and posted in examination venues to help candidates who have forgotten their seat location.

To get started, course staff, including instructors, should first look at Access & Roles to learn how to obtain access to the system; then at Examination Setup for information about what to do. Later, some of the detailed help pages linked below may be found to be useful.

Examination candidates should be referred to the following URL which will show them their upcoming examinations, including room and seat locations:

https://odyssey.uwaterloo.ca/teaching/schedule

The above link will not be useful to course staff unless they are also an examination candidate.

Detailed Help

These pages are likely to be useful to course staff in general:

  • Access & Roles — How to obtain access to the system, and what kinds of access are available.
  • Examination Setup — How to set up your examinations in the system.
  • Room Layout Conventions — Information on the conventions used to identify individual seats in examination rooms.
  • Examination Master Preparation — How to prepare an electronic examination master for printing.
  • Editing Examination Details — Setting and changing characteristics of examinations, including special cases.
  • Editing Sitting Details — Setting and changing characteristics of sittings, including rooms and seats.
  • RO Finals — Some considerations related to final examinations printed by the Registrar’s Office (RO).
  • Terminology — Detailed information about important terms, including the distinction between a “Sitting” and an “Examination”.

These pages are useful only to people needing to perform specific tasks, not to most course staff:

  • Accommodation Processing — How accommodation processing works. Primarily intended for AAS (AccessAbility Services).
  • Administration — Information for overall application administrators.
  • PAC Setup — Details on setting up signs in the Physical Activities Complex for final examinations.

More Information

For more information, please contact ist-ems@uwaterloo.ca.