The System

psi-exam is a digital exam system that has been developed at the Chair of Privacy and Security in Information Systems since the summer semester 2023. The system was designed with clear objectives: to conduct electronic exams in large courses with minimal supervision, while maintaining high reliability and security.

At University of Bamberg, we can conduct e-assessments with up to 320 students in one room, without requiring fixed infrastructure. On our Lenovo T14 laptops equipped with specially prepared Debian Linux, in 2025 we conducted e-assessments annually on approximately 20 days with more than 600 exam participants across about 10 courses.

Explainer Video and Student Instructions

The following video (English) shows all steps before, during, and after the exam:

The following instructions for students are also available on the exam laptop:

Advantages

Core Functions

Pseudonymous Grading

A central feature of psi-exam is the capability for pseudonymous assessment. Instead of real names, randomly assigned animal names like “Blue Elephant” or “Green Giraffe” are displayed. This enables unbiased assessment and protects student privacy. Through cryptography, the organizing team can ensure that the real names are only revealed to graders after grading is complete.

Efficient Grading Processes

Grading is performed question-by-question rather than student-by-student: examiners see all students’ answers for each subtask, enabling more consistent assessments. Similar answers can be grouped. Filtering by specific keywords is possible, as is sorting by length or assigned points. Retroactive point adjustments are thus easier, allowing all affected exams to be treated equally when changes are made.

Flexible Task Types and Permitted Materials

psi-exam supports various exam and task formats:

• Free-text answers, single or multi-line
• Practical programming tasks in real development environments
• System analysis and debugging with Visual Studio Code, data analysis with R Studio
• Complex mathematical notation (LaTeX notation) in questions and answers

Multiple-choice questions are currently not explicitly supported, but can be implemented via free-text answers.

Additional Linux programs or websites can be provided as permitted materials for the exam on the laptops – with sufficient lead time.

The system is less suitable for tasks requiring drawings or sketches. Such tasks are better solved on paper, which is possible independently of the e-assessment.

Feedback During the Exam

A special feature is the ability to give students feedback on individual questions during the exam about whether their answer was correct – especially at the beginning of an exam, this can help reduce exam stress.

Early Digital Review

A special feature is early review: students can view their graded exams digitally before final grades are determined. This enables early identification and correction of grading errors. Experience shows that this transparent procedure strengthens trust in the assessment and is utilized by many students.

Technical Implementation

Infrastructure

For exams, we use approximately 380 Lenovo T14 laptops with privacy screens, specially configured for exam purposes. The laptops run autonomously on battery power during the exam without power or network connections.

The exam application psi-exam runs browser-based on a customized Debian Linux operating system.

Laptop preparation (charging and software distribution) is done in advance. The programs and development environments provided during the exam are pre-installed on the laptops. Task descriptions and additional materials are retrieved via a temporary WLAN disconnected from the internet.

Exam questions currently still need to be created as HTML pages. An authoring tool is in planning.

Security Aspects

Various security measures ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability:

• Inputs are saved locally and additionally backed up on SD cards in the computers
• In case of technical problems, the current work state can be quickly transferred to a replacement device using the SD card
• Digital signatures and encrypted messages protect the data
• Checksums for examinees and supervisors allow detection of human errors
• Efficient transmission of solutions after exam completion via temporary WLAN (fallback: SD cards)

We have explained the security-relevant design decisions in a peer-reviewed publication: Kirsch, Andreas; Herrmann, Dominik (2024): Reliable and secure on-premise e-assessment with psi-exam. Sicherheit 2024. DOI: 10.18420/sicherheit2024_012.

Experience and Perspectives

Early Experience

psi-exam was first used in the summer semester 2023 for three exams with up to 250 registered examinees each. Since then, further experience has been gathered each semester, which feeds into ongoing development.

We discussed early experience with the system and the design of exams under practical conditions at the E-Assessment Symposium 2023 at RWTH Aachen. There is a recording of the talk available:

Current Status

Currently, exams with up to 320 examinees can be conducted with psi-exam. The system is currently in use in about 10 modules. Over 600 exam participants are currently assessed with it per year.

Future Developments

Planned extensions include improved statistics functions and a more user-friendly authoring tool, so that exam questions can be created in the future without HTML knowledge.

psi-exam is currently a functional prototype funded from PSI’s own resources and through third-party funding. Within the framework of the BaKuLe project , work has been underway since October 2025 to transition it into a regular university service. In the medium term, psi-exam should be made available university-wide once sufficient experience with its use has been gathered and support questions have been clarified. Release of the system under an open-source license is planned.

Frequently Asked Questions

Implementation and Contact

For other teaching units: psi-exam is an activity of the PSI Chair. To gather further experience with the solution, we offer – to a limited extent – to conduct exams for other teaching units and support them with technical implementation.

For other universities: The psi-exam system was developed with the goal of being available to other universities as well. Technical documentation and implementation guides are in preparation.

Expression of interest: Universities interested in implementing psi-exam can contact Prof. Dr. Dominik Herrmann directly.