From crisis to confidence: how IÉSEG delivered high-stakes digital exams in just four weeks

IÉSEG School of Management is a leading French business school with two campuses in Lille and Paris, hosting approximately 6,100 students across 25 programmes. With nearly 2,000 international students representing around 100 different nationalities, IÉSEG has built its reputation on academic excellence, internationalisation, and a strong student experience.

In March 2020, as the COVID‑19 pandemic swept through Europe, France implemented a sudden lockdown. For Jonas Debrulle, Director of Programmes, and only a few months into the role, the timing could not have been more critical. Final exams were scheduled for May, and thousands of students depended on these assessments to complete their degrees on time.

Navigating lockdown pressure and government requirements

The French government imposed strict rules for how remote exams had to be managed. Institutions were required to:

• Verify student identity visually, ensuring the correct person was taking the exam.
• Prevent cheating by restricting access to digital resources during the test.
• Provide reliable exam conditions for large cohorts.

The existing exam tools at IÉSEG did not support visual identity validation, nor were they widely adopted among professors—particularly the many visiting lecturers who teach courses but rely on administrative staff to set up exams.

Suddenly, the school had to redesign its examination model from the ground up.

Choosing wiseflow under extreme time constraints

With May exams only weeks away, IÉSEG formed a rapid‑response team to identify potential digital assessment partners. They evaluated solutions from France and abroad, but none offered the right balance of security, scalability, and speed, until they contacted UNIwise.

Over the course of just two weeks, IÉSEG met with several vendors and carefully evaluated each platform’s capabilities. WISEflow quickly distinguished itself as the strongest solution. Its facial recognition feature enabled secure identity verification, while the lockdown browser ensured students could not access files or other applications during the exam. The system also demonstrated the scalability required to support very large cohorts, up to 1,400 students in a single session, without compromising performance. In addition, WISEflow offered flexible authoring tools and auto‑correction options that appealed to both administrative staff and professors. Finally, the strength of UNIwise’s support model, particularly its readiness to assist in crisis mode, played a decisive role in IÉSEG’s choice.

IÉSEG signed with UNIwise in April 2020. The first exams were scheduled for May. That left three to four weeks to roll out a fully operational digital assessment system.

Training, change management and rapid adoption

To meet the impossible deadline, IÉSEG had to restructure internal roles temporarily. Instead of maintaining traditional processes, administrative staff became flow managers and exam supervisors, professors took the roles of exam authors and markers, and UNIwise trainers guided staff on exam creation, evaluation, and system configuration.

Over the course of April, IÉSEG organised five to six training sessions, each with 20–30 staff members. Some participants attended multiple sessions to gain full confidence. The school also produced short instructional videos, answered countless questions through an internal support panel, and adjusted working hours as needed.

Preparing 3,000 students for a new exam reality

Between May and June, around 3,000 students were scheduled to take digital exams. To prepare them:

• Students were asked to complete several dummy exams, with some completing all five.
• IÉSEG recruited 10 master’s students to act as “guinea pigs,” testing around 40 exam formats to understand how lockdown browser modes, messaging, and proctor tools worked.
• The school introduced new rules—most importantly, that students must log in 15 minutes before exam start to avoid last‑minute confusion.

The rigorous testing paid off. The faculty and support teams began feeling more confident in the platform’s logic and behaviour, and both staff and students started adapting to the new procedures.

Live exams: war rooms, proactive support and unexpected moments

As exam days arrived, IÉSEG set up a dedicated war room to assist students in real time. A hotline was opened for anyone experiencing difficulties, especially those with unstable internet connections. WISEflow’s dashboard allowed staff to see who had activated their flow. If a student remained inactive, the team acted immediately, sometimes even contacting parents.

There were unusual moments too. In one case, a student in China was repeatedly blocked by facial recognition. When Jonas spoke to her via Zoom, he realised the registered photo was of her brother, who had set up the system for her. And when an exam was accidentally deleted by a staff member, WISEflow’s log system helped UNIwise recover it—and taught the school exactly what not to do in future.