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 take place on-campus in various linux computer labs. The exam is 3 hours long, plus 15 minutes reading time. You will have access to Intellij. It is a closed book exam. The only permitted materials are pens (for writing on provided scribble paper) and:

  • One A4 page with notes on both sides
  • Unannotated paper-based dictionary (no approval required)

Internet access will be restricted, and you will only be able to access https://exam-gitlab.cecs.anu.edu.au. You will have your exam paper pre-forked onto your user account on exam-gitlab. You will need to clone this in Intellij and commit and push back changes to exam-gitlab.

For students currently enrolled in a remote lab that will not be on-campus during the examination period, you will be asked to defer the exam until week 1 of Semester 2 2023. I will send you an email on the 1st of May, giving you my approval for you to sit a deferred exam. Please fill out the appropriate eForm to apply for a deferred exam, copying in the email I send you as justification.

If you are a remote student and have a good reason that you will not be able to be on campus in week 1 of Semester 2 2023, then please contact your convenor directly. In certain circumstances I will allow students to sit the exam remotely at the same time as the scheduled in-person exam, albeit with strict requirements around screen and camera recording so we can appropriately invigilate. See remote exams for specific requirements for sitting the exam remotely. Note, this is for students enrolled in a remote lab only. If you are an on-campus student and can’t make the final exam, please read the section below on deferred exams.

Computers #

You will have to use one of the linux lab computers. You will not be permitted to bring your laptop. You will need your ANU creditials (UID and password) to sign in to the lab computers and to access your account on the exam-gitlab instance. Make sure you can login to the lab computers and are familiar with the use of Intellij. Do this in the days leading up to the exam so that any issues can be resolved.

The ANU occasionaly might require that you change your password. Make sure you can login to https://identity.anu.edu.au. To be safe, check you can log in the morning of the exam. There are instances where student passwords expired overnight and they weren’t aware.

Exam Instructions #

More details on how the exam will run will follow as some finer details are resolved. Please see back here at a later date.

Entering the Room #

When you enter the room and sit down at a desk, you may log into your lab computer. You can do this prior to the start of the exam, but you MUST NOT run any applications. You should leave it on a blank desktop until reading time formally starts.

Reading Time #

During the reading time you may clone the exam project in Intellij and browse it there or on exam-gitlab. However, you MUST NOT be writting any code or answering questions, just reading and planning out your approach. You may take notes on the provided scribble paper. Make sure you understand the provided exam instructions.

The exam will be “pre-forked” under your username on gitlab. You won’t need to fork it again, rather directly clone it to your lab machine.

Exam Time #

When reading time finishes you may start coding and answering the exam questions in Intellij. Be sure to remember to commit and push your code regularly. Whenever you complete a question or part of a question is a good idea. Please do not push broken builds. Ensure that everything is building before pushing a commit. We will only mark the last push received before the deadline.

The CI will not be running during the exam. If you see an error in relation the CI on gitlab, don’t worry about it. We will trigger it separately and run the CI on all your submissions after the exam.

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 - 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.

Sample Exams #

We have provided several sample exams, which you can use to practice with a similar format to the final exam. The number and weighting of questions and the material covered for the final exam may be different from the sample exam.

Remote Exam #

For students eligible to sit the exam remotely, you will be sitting it at the same time as the other students. All communication will be done through the ed forum, where announcements will be made in regard to the start and end of the exam, and any corrections. So please keep an eye on it during your exam. During this time you will be only able to post private messages on ed to instructors.

As for everyone else, the exam is closed book.

You must only have access to the same permitted materials as outlined earlier for the in-person exam. The same rules around reading time apply.

Internet Access #

The only websites / internet you should access during the exam are the course ed forum and https://gitlab.cecs.anu.edu.au. Note that this is different from the gitlab instance the students sitting the in-person exam will use. You will be given permission to access a repository located under https://gitlab.cecs.anu.edu.au/comp1110/exam/ at the start of the exam. This access will be revoked at the end of the exam. It will be preforked, and unique to you, so all you will have to do is clone it in Intellij and push your changes back to it.

Code Completion / Assist Tools #

You should not have any non-default plugins enabled in Intellij or use other tools to assist you with your coding. This includes ChatGPT and Co-pilot and similar tools.

Self Invigilation #

Academic integrity is paramount.

We require that you follow the steps below to self-invigilate your remote exam. If you do not follow these requirements or have a technical problem that prevents it working correctly, we may not accept your exam paper, and may require an additional assessment to be undertaken.

You will need to make a recording of your screens (all of them you look at) for the entire duration of the exam and without interruption. If you are not able to record multiple screens at once, then you should only use a single screen during the exam. There should be no secondary devices that you view or interact with during the exam, unless they too are recorded.

You must use a webcam to make a recording of yourself where your face is clearly visible for the duration of the exam (toilet breaks permitted without issue). At the start of the exam, you should breifly hold up an ID card for the webcam to see so that you can be identified. Hold up your permitted materials, if any, to the camera so that we can confirm what you might be accessing during the exam.

At the end of the exam, you should collect your recording files together, and upload them to onedrive. Message your convenor on the ed forum once the upload is complete and you have a shared link you can provide to your recording. Do this as soon as possible. Do not leave it until the next day.

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 a sample exam to check you remember the process.
  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(s). 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 exams, 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.

What You Need To Do During The Exam #

  1. Make yourself comfortable and shut down all communication channels except the class ed forum.
  2. Start your full screen recording now.
  3. Log on to ed and make sure to read and follow instructions there.
  4. When reading time starts (but not before), clone the repository you will be given permission to access in Intellij.
  5. Take time to carefully read the README.md file in the exam and the provided code for each question.
  6. 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.
  7. It is your responsibility to keep track of time and push to GitLab before the end of the exam. We will post announcements on ed when it is close to the end of the exam.
  8. Five minutes before you finish the exam, check again that you’ve committed and pushed all of your work.
  9. At the end of the exam, stop your screen recording, save it, check it, upload it to onedrive and share the link with your convenor on the ed forum.
  10. Celebrate.

Exam Do’s and Don’ts #

  • Do not post to ed visible to all during the exam - ever.
  • Do ask private questions on ed.
  • Do not use any communication system (other than private posts on ed 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.
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