The following texts can be used in courses to explain the exam booklet incentive system to students. You can use the content directly or adapt it to your specific requirements.
Adaptation Note: This template contains Bamberg-specific information (campusprint scanners, web links, technical processes) that you must adapt for your institution. See especially the section on submission with the local scanning workflow.
Depending on your specific requirements, you should also adapt the following aspects:
- Semester-specific information: Update time periods and deadlines
- Technical details: Adapt scanning and upload procedures to your infrastructure
- Regulations: Modify page count, format, and submission deadlines as needed
- Institution-specific information: Add institution-specific procedures and contacts
Introduction
One of the most effective learning techniques is taking notes while reading and listening (active reading or active listening). We observe, however, that many students struggle to motivate themselves to take notes regularly.
As an incentive for regular note-taking, we use personal booklets in this module. A booklet consists of up to 15 pages in A5 size. Each week, you can submit or upload one A5 page by a specific deadline (the exact deadline will be announced online). You can fill the booklet pages with any content you consider useful for the exam (subject to the conditions described in the Conditions section). Before the exam, we will compile your pages into a stapled booklet and have it printed in color. You will receive your personal booklet on the day of the exam along with the exam questions. At the end of the exam period, you submit the booklet with your exam.
Creating the pages for your booklet requires critical thinking. How can the material best be compressed and written clearly and concisely? What content do I want to offload into the booklet, what can I memorize myself? The booklet thus encourages an active learning process.
Teamwork allowed: If you work in a study group, we recommend that each member of your group prepares their own draft, you discuss the drafts in your group, and then all group members create their own pages based on this discussion.
Conditions
The following regulations may seem pedantic. However, they are necessary to maintain the exam principle of equal opportunity.
Validity Period
Submission: Booklet pages can only be submitted in the current semester Use: Permitted materials for exams in the current semester and the following semester
Handwriting Requirement
Own handwriting: All booklet pages must be written in your own handwriting (paper or tablet) Learning effect: Writing by hand helps your brain remember what you have written Goal: Ideally, by the end of the semester you know what is in the booklet, so looking things up is quick
Permitted Content
Handwritten transcription: Screenshots of slides or videos are only allowed if you have transcribed them by hand Typeface: One printed heading per page is allowed (e.g., from note-taking apps)
Arrangement: Reducing the size and arranging multiple handwritten elements on one page is permitted
You do not need to cite sources on the pages, i.e., it is allowed to copy lecture slides, text from the script, answers to exercises, content from Wikipedia, etc., without citing the source. It is also irrelevant whether booklets from different students contain the same drawings—as long as they were each drawn independently by each person.
Working on booklet pages in study groups is allowed—provided that each booklet page was completely handwritten by each person themselves.
Submitting Pages
Submission of booklet pages is done electronically.
Example Workflow (University of Bamberg): You can scan your pages in good quality at a campusprint copier. To do this, insert your student ID card into the terminal, press the “Fax/Scan” button on the multifunction device, and select “campusprint” as the recipient on the touchscreen display. You can place your page in the upper feed and then press the start button. After the scanning process is complete, you can download your page at https://campusprint.uni-bamberg.de/ and then submit the file.
Uploading an image is best done via a desktop browser. Below we provide some tips to achieve a good result. Note first that we will print your pages in A5 format on a laser printer. If you write very small, you must pay particular attention to uploading a sharp image with high contrast. Make sure your images are not too pale, cropped at the edges, or blurry. If you take photos of your pages, ensure adequate and—more importantly—even lighting and use a sufficiently high resolution. Consider using a specialized app that helps with digitizing paper documents. Set up a suitable workflow early to avoid time pressure.
What is a sufficiently high resolution? Prints are easily readable if they have at least 300 dpi. The short side of your image should therefore have at least 1771 pixels, the long side at least 2480 pixels.
To get a feel for readability, adjust the scaling on your computer screen so that the displayed size corresponds to an A5 sheet placed over it. If you can read your writing at this scale, everything should be fine.
Dealing with Problems
Often the internet goes down or the Wi-Fi at the university is overloaded just before a booklet deadline. We recommend that you do not upload booklet pages just before the deadline. Test the upload process before the deadline to avoid surprises. After the deadline, we will no longer accept your booklet page—unless you immediately provide a suitable medical certificate of incapacity to work.
Permitted Materials
You will receive your booklet along with the exam questions. Only the booklets we issue are permitted materials, i.e., you may not bring any additional notes to the exam. Furthermore, it is not permitted to add notes to your booklet before or during the exam; however, adding highlights with text markers is allowed.
Booklets that were not completely handwritten by you yourself are not permitted materials. It is your responsibility to check whether your booklet meets this criterion. If you discover that one of your pages does not meet the requirements after the deadline for submitting that page has passed, you can have it deleted from your booklet by us until the deadline for the last booklet page. Replacing the content of deleted pages is not possible.