High Stake Exams With Byod At The University Of Porto: Bypassing Constraints

University of Porto (U.PORTO) is a traditional higher education institution with more than 30 000 students enrolled. Nine years ago, the first high stake exam using computer was conducted with quite success through Moodle’s quiz activity. Since 2009 the technical conditions and infrastructure were improved in such a way that we’ve faced logistic challenges due to the increasing number of exams taking place. This year of 2018 more than 15 000 quiz submissions were made on the first semester. Actually, these constraints – an indirect indicator of our success – were a result of mainly two factors: on one hand a university policy decision to shorten the assessment calendar and on the other hand a low ratio of computers per student in some faculties. Therefore, facing the uncertainty of a considerable investment on computers but also watching the rising number of students owning a laptop, the Educational Technologies unit decided to explore the path of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) concerning computer-based assessment (CBA). So, in a careful and sustainable way – this is after all a moment of extreme importance for all stakeholders, especially for the students involved – four courses from two different faculties embraced this methodology. This paper will discuss the requirements and implementation of this solution along with the methodology followed. It will show the results of one BYOD exam session at the Faculty of Sport Sciences and Physical Education, which had some specificities, including two shifts and some students submitting on paper.