Abstract
Technology has supported online examinations successfully for a number of years, and has
progressively enhanced the online examination process over the years. However, some schools
particularly public tertiary institutions in developing countries are still involved in the conventional
manual system of writing examination. This manual system of writing examination has a lot of
demerits. The manual process of taking examinations is not only time-consuming and tedious, but
cumbersome, hence the need for a better, faster and more reliable means of examining students. The
objective of this paper is to provide a report on the implementation of a web-based examination
system. The implemented system was modeled using Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams
such as Use Case diagram, Sequence diagram and Activity diagrams. The system was developed
using ASP.Net and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), ASP.Net and C-sharp as front end, Internet
Information Services (IIS) as middle ware and Microsoft SQL Server as database. With the online
examination system, the process of conducting examinations and processing results is made ease.
More so, there is a reasonable level of security and integrity on the conduct of examination.
Keywords: Examination, Results, Online, Student and Lecturer.
1 INTRODUCTION
As a result of the development of Internet technology, online examination has become an effective
complement to traditional examination. It is a common knowledge that students are extremely prone to
cheating under the traditional method, which could affect the fairness of examination. The pen and
paper method of writing examination, which has been ongoing for decades, may not be pleasing for
use because of the problems usually associated including examination venue capacity constraints,
lack of comfort for examination candidates, delay in the release of results, examination malpractices,
cost implication of printing examination materials and human fault [1]. The shift of examination as well
as examination administration procedures from paper-based to information technology based
processes necessitates substantial reorganization processes at universities. Administrative staff, IT
support staff, lecturers and examiners as well as students have to adapt to and familiarize themselves
with new examination practices known as online examination [2].
An online examination system is an application that allows an institution conduct examination via the
Internet (or intranet). Various companies, institutions and organizations have opted for this method of
conducting examinations, because it is quicker, easier and convenient. This system makes it easier for
examiners to conduct exams and collate results. The application provides facility to conduct online
examination anywhere and at any time. Today, most institutions are conducting their exams online to
eliminate the bottlenecks associated with pen and paper type of examination. Technology has
supported online examinations successfully for a number of years, and has progressively enhanced
the process over the years to have room for more students and ensure a smoother online
examination. However, one of the biggest challenges to online examination is cheating using
technology.
Several researches exist that are related to the work reported in this paper. The study in [3] developed
an online examination system that allows for creating a test from the question bank of the system and
conducting Academic and Non-Academic examinations in English as well as Bangla. Similarly, [1]
developed a web-based online examination system to address some drawbacks associated with pen
and paper method of writing examinations. The study in [4] explored the development of Multiple
Choice Examination System and Online Quizzes for General Chemistry. The paper presents the main
aspects and implementation of an online multiple choice examination system with general chemistry
issues for student evaluation. Security issues were also examined by some studies. For instance, in a
paper reported in [5], the impacts, associated challenges and security lapses of the existing electronicexamination
system with the aim of ameliorating and developing a new acceptable e-Exam system.