Examity Shut down

[clean]

Word from the dean is that India has closed down their offices and they are not going to be able to proctor exams at least through the end of the month.

With a large number of universities going online, I suspect that several were hoping to use Examity to proctor exams.  I know that I had certainly considered using them, and had the blurb on the syllabus that let everyone know that it was a remote possibility.  However, as the cost was not expected by the students, our administration had indicated that we would need to make accommodations for students that could not afford the cost. 

Given that, I had made other plans, and I am glad that I am in the process. After discussing the issues with several other faculty, I had decided that I would give multiple choice tests with a short time limit drawn from a larger pool of questions. I had decided that the tests would be given all at the same time. When I use Examity, I usually provide a 24 or even 48 hour window for the exams.  This way, they will all be taking the exam at the same time (our regular class period time), and as the questions will be scrambled, and the time limit short, even if students wanted to use other resources, they would not have  a long time to do so. 

I am somewhat concerned that the publisher's materials have been placed online, I will do some checking this week to see if the questions are available. IF they are, then I suppose that I will be making changes to the questions.  I am somewhat fortunate that my field is finance, so to the extent that there are number problems, I can change one number slightly, and replace one of the incorrect answers with the new correct answer. I have done this in the past, leaving the original correct answer in its original location.  I will admit that some students were surprised that they earned a much lower grade than they expected, and were sheepish to explain, as they were not supposed to use online support, that they missed every question that was changed even though they had the originally correct answers.

Were you planning to use Examity?  What will you do now?

[mythbuster]

Last word was that my Uni was in negotiations with an online proctoring service. However we had already been told that each course could only have one proctored exam. It likely was Examity, as that is what we used in the past.
   I was already planning for two of my exams to allow open book and note, with creative scenarios that can't easily be googled. But I have a lab exam for which that type of creativity is not nearly as easy. Somehow we will muddle through on that one. Thankfully I have two weeks to figure it out.