A smooth transition: how the Danish School of Media and Journalism used digital assessment to conduct its entrance exams during the Covid pandemic.

Over 900 Applicants at the Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX) completed their first-ever fully online admission test in April of 2020 using WISEflow, without needing to leave their homes.

Circumstances were, of course, radically different to the norm. Covid-19 had forced institutions worldwide to move to remote online assessment – an adjustment we became all too familiar with through the course of the pandemic. Applicants had to use their own Wi-Fi connections, and all support and monitoring had to be done online: universities worldwide were entering uncharted territories. Despite many necessary adjustments, the transition to the digital admission test was a resounding success – with DMJX going on to make a permanent switch to off-campus testing for 2021 and onwards.

What made this transition all the smoother was the fact that DMJX had been using WISEflow as their exam and assessment platform since 2015 and, in collaboration with UNIwise, had taken the decision to conduct this admission test using WISEflow’s newly developed feature: “automated proctoring”.

Automated proctoring is a form of online monitoring, or invigilation, that supports academic integrity. WISEflow takes pictures using an applicant’s webcam at random intervals, and an authenticity score is calculated and maintained during the test to monitor candidate performance and behaviour electronically. This ensured that despite the fact they could not be present with the students, the admission test would be an authentic reflection of participants’ ability and knowledge

Rikke Heisz Nielsen, Solutions Architect at UNIwise, believes that the success of DMJX’s admission test is down to thorough and conclusive preparation – both from DMJX itself and the applicants that took part. The institution managed to clearly circulate all the relevant information about the technicalities of the test to students, such as an installation guide for the FlowLock browser and instructions for the use of webcams as part of the automated proctoring. This resulted in a group of well-prepared applicants, who knew what to expect and were able to make the most of the online exam. Without DMJX’s guidance and support, Rikke says, the success of the exam might not have been guaranteed.

The pandemic has meant that universities worldwide have had to improvise, adapting to digital assessment at a rapid pace: we could not be happier to have been able to assist DMJX during these unprecedented times. Our positive work with various other partner institutions since the start of the pandemic, such as France’s EISEG, the University of Malta, Imperial College London and the European Patent Office, gives us confidence that new and innovative forms of testing do not have to sacrifice the quality or authenticity of examinations.