Please read the following carefully. Please note that details here may be updated, and you should re-read this information as you get closer to the exam time.

The final exam will be distributed via GitLab, using the CECS exam GitLab server. The exam will be similar in style to the exam from Semester 2, 2020, which is available as a practice exam. The exam from Semester 1, 2020 is also available. A sample exam from 2019 is also available. The style of the 2019 sample exam is a little different since it was not designed for open-book, but nonetheless it contains numerous questions which will help you revise.

The exam will run for 195 minutes.

Self Invigilation #

Academic integrity is paramount.

Maintaining integrity in an online exam is a challenging problem. Because students care about integrity, for our online exams we provide you with the opportunity to self-invigilate. If you wish to do this, you should create a screen recording of your entire exam (details below), including a webcam image of you and an ID card. Note that this process is encouraged, but not required. You will not be required to pass your recording on to ANU. You should keep your recording safely for one month. If ANU should raise any concerns about the integrity of the work you did during the exam, your recording will provide you with the opportunity to submit your screen recording as evidence to support your case.

Preparing For The Exam #

Being prepared is important to doing your best in the exam. The steps below are designed to help minimize the possibility of running into avoidable technical problems during the exam.

What You Need To Do In The Weeks Before the Exam #

Before the exam, you need to make sure all of your software is working correctly, and in order to do self-invigilation, that you know how to do screen recordings, can capture a live view on your webcam while doing a screen recording, and can do the practice exam and use the CI correctly.

  1. Ensure you have a working home setup for the course including IntelliJ, Java, JavaFX, and Git.
  2. Ensure you can access your ANU GitLab account.
  3. Clone your template exam repository from the exam gitlab server (see piazza post @1118). If you do not clone the repo in advance, you will have to do it at the start of the exam; this should work, but it may take longer than just pulling an update.
  4. In order to self-invigilate, find screen recording software that you trust works well on your computer. Test it, and make sure you can successfully record the whole of your screen. Some options:
    • Quicktime is built into MacOS and allows you to easily do a screen recording. Instructions from Apple here. Note that for Mojave and later, you can bring up the screen recording with the hotkey Shift+Command+5, described here.
    • Free Cam is an application for Windows that provides very similar features to Quicktime. There are instructions on how to use Free Cam here.
    • VLC is a widely used open source application for Windows, MacOs, and Linux. VLC supports screen recordings as described here.
    • OBS is an industrial-strength recording platform for Linux, Windows and MacOS. It does far more than screen recording (I use it to stream our lectures), and is somewhat more complex than the above options. It is free and has good online support. Instructions on how to do a screen recording with OBS are here.
    • Nvidia’s ShadowPlay is a simple way to record your whole desktop if you are using Windows and have a supported Nvidia graphics card. Here’s a youtube video explaining how to do it.
    • AMD offers similar software if you are using a supported AMD graphics card. Details from AMD here.
  5. To self-invigilate, ensure that you have a working webcam and bring up a live view of your face, and your ID card, while recording. Ensure that this works, so that your screen recording can include a live view of you and your ID (if you don’t have an ANU ID you should use your driver’s license or passport).
  6. Familiarize yourself with the practice exam, and do as many questions as you can.
  7. Ensure that you can run the unit tests in the practice exam.
  8. Try doing some questions with your screen recording going to ensure that it captures your work. Include a brief live view with your webcam and ID at the start of the recording. Be sure to stop your screen recording at the end and check the saved file has captured things correctly. Ensure that your recording contains your whole screen and your webcam live view at the start.

If you have any problems with setting up your development environment, self-recording, or with cloning the exam and solving the test question (Q0HelloWorld), you should seek help now: ask the tutors during the last labs/consultation sessions, or post your question on piazza.

What You Need To Do During The Exam #

  1. Make yourself comfortable and shut down all communication channels except the class Piazza forum and the exam zoom session (details will be made available before the exam).
  2. Start your full screen recording now.
  3. Open the exam in IntellJ (if you have already cloned it; if you have not, then do not attempt to do so until the exam has started).
  4. Log on to Piazza and make sure to read and follow instructions there.
  5. When the exam starts (but not before), do a pull on your exam repo. This will fetch all of the exam questions and the tests for them. Note: If you did not clone your exam repo during the week 12 time window, you will need to do that at the start of the exam.
  6. Take time to carefully read the README.md file in the exam and the provided code for each question.
  7. Complete the exam. Commit your work regularly, and push whenever you’ve completed a question. Rememer that you can commit and push as many times as you wish during the exam time; only the final commit prior to the deadline will be marked.
  8. It is your responsibility to keep track of time and push to GitLab before the end of the exam. We will post announcements on piazza when it is close to the end of the exam.
  9. Five minutes before you finish the exam, check again that you’ve committed and pushed all of your work.
  10. At the end of the exam, stop your screen recording, save it, check it, and keep it in a safe place for one month. Do not send it to ANU or add it to your repo.

Exam Do’s and Don’ts #

  • Do not submit your video recording. This file is yours and stays private, unless you chose to present it as evidence.
  • Do not post to Piazza visible to all during the exam - ever.
  • Do ask questions directly posting to “Instructors” on Piazza
  • The exam is designed so that you do not need to consult any material, but if you feel the urge to look up something on your computer, this is fine.
  • Do not use any communication system (other than direct posts on Piazza to Instructors) during your exam - if you do, it will be counted immediately as collusion and will have serious academic honesty consequences.
  • Do not upload any exam material anywhere other than the exam server. If you do so, you will also become part of an academic collusion case which will stay on your permanent record at ANU.
  • Be very very careful searching for any material online. If you find references to material which might be the result of collusion (which hopefully will not exist), you are one click away from becoming part of a serious academic honesty case yourself. Remember that any of your activity must appear in your recording, and according to basic academic standards, we also expect you to reference in your pdf file anything which you might have included in your working. You will likely waste valuable time for your exam and expose yourself to serious risks, so we recommend you avoid doing so.

Finally: take your time and formulate neat and precise answers on your path to a great grade.

Oral Examinations #

All assessment in this course may be subject to an oral examination. As part of the final exam, we may select a subset of students for followup oral examination, consisting of a small number of questions aiming to confirm their exam mark. If the convenor is not satisfied with the outcome of this oral examination, this may result in reduction of exam mark, failure of the final exam, and/or an investigation under ANU’s academic integrity rules.

Deferred examination #

If you are unable to sit the final exam on the designated exam date - for example, due to illness or technical problems preventing you from accessing the exam - you must apply for deferred examination. To do so, read and follow the instructions at http://www.anu.edu.au/students/program-administration/assessments-exams/deferred-examinations. Please note that applications for deferral are decided by the exams office, not the course convenors, who are only informed if your application is approved.

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