Some Unisa students experience technical glitches with online exams

The University of South Africa (Unisa) says it is aware of concerns relating to online examinations raised by students via online, social media platforms, emails and other channels.

The university apologises to those affected by the technical glitches, and assures students that it is working around the clock to address these issues and that finding a resolution remains a top priority.

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The Covid-19 pandemic has compelled Unisa to reconsider some of its academic activities that require physical application, such as venue-based examinations and the submission of hard copy assignments and has moved to confine these strictly to an online application and submission platform.

In order to spread the load on the examination platforms, it has been necessary to change the times of approximately seven out of the 2000 exams that are being written during this exam season. Should it be necessary to move any more dates, students will be informed, – Professor Veronica McKay, Acting Vice-Principal: Teaching, Learning, Community Engagement and Student Support

“In some cases, we needed to move an exam to 6pm on the same day, and in some cases we have moved the exam to 6pm a few days later. We apologise to students who have been affected by these changes. We are aware of the pressures and dedication that goes into preparing for exams and we know that for many it is disconcerting to have been studying and preparing to sit for the exam only to learn that the time slot has been moved,” said Professor McKay.

The examinations that have needed to be moved have been those with very large numbers of students – some modules have up to 32 000 students needing to write at the same time. These time changes have been necessary to ensure that students in large numbers are able to write their examinations at a time when the traffic on the system is low, she said.

We are also aware that students have struggled to download or upload examination papers. We now include alternative links on the MyUnisa and MyExam sites. These provide an alternative way for students to upload their answers if they encounter any challenges. We encourage students who might struggle to upload their exams using the usual system to use the links to the portals that are provided with their exams.

“We know this is a very challenging time, not just for the university and our students, but the country as a whole. We are aware that students have faced challenges, specifically with exams that were held between  May 25 and 28 and we will be offering another opportunity for those students to sit for the same exam later in the season. We will be resetting question papers for this to be possible and will announce the dates for those exams that were affected.”

Students can visit www.unisa.ac.za for more information.

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