The internet drops in the middle of an exam: what happens to the answers, and what to do

It is 9:20 on exam morning. One hundred and twenty candidates are 20 minutes into an online test in the school hall, and the Wi-Fi goes down. For three minutes nothing loads. Hands go up everywhere: "Is my answer saved?", "My timer is still running!", "Should I refresh?". The invigilators do not know either. The connection comes back, but the rest of the morning goes on arguing about who lost what and who deserves extra time, and two parents email the next day asking for a re-sit.

The answers are usually not the worst damage. The real problem is that nobody knows what was saved, whose clock kept running and who was affected. This article explains what actually happens to answers and time when the connection drops in an ExamQR exam, what to do in the first five minutes, and how to run exams in rooms where the network cannot be trusted at all.

1. What happens to the answers

The worry. Candidates fear that everything they typed since the last "save" is gone, so they stop working, refresh the page or switch to their phone. Those reactions cause more lost work than the outage itself.

What actually happens. In an ExamQR online exam, the candidate does not have to press "save":

• Answers are sent to the server a couple of seconds after each change, and again every 15 seconds while the candidate works. A copy is also kept in the browser.
• If a save fails, the page shows that the latest answers are not saved yet. If it keeps failing, a network warning appears on the screen, and it disappears as soon as a save gets through.
• While the warning is on, the candidate can keep answering. The answers stay on the page and are sent with the next save that succeeds.
• If the page is reloaded or the browser closes, opening the exam again on the same browser brings back the answers kept there.

What candidates should do. Tell them before the exam, not during it: keep working, do not close the tab, and do not move to another device unless an invigilator asks. Signing in on a second device ends the session on the first one, and anything that the first device had not sent yet stays behind on it.

2. What happens to the time

The worry. "The clock kept running while I could not do anything."

What actually happens. The end time of each candidate's exam is kept on the server, not in the browser, so refreshing the page neither resets nor pauses it. There is no pause button, on purpose: one candidate's pause would be another candidate's extra time.

When time runs out, the page submits on its own. If the connection is down at that moment, the page keeps trying for a short while, and then the server closes the paper with the answers it already has. Answers saved before the outage always count. Answers typed during the outage count only if they reach the server before the paper closes.

What fixes it. Give time back, but only to the people who lost it. From the supervisor screen you can add minutes to one candidate, a group or a whole room. Do it while candidates are still in the exam, which is why the rule for it should be written in advance (see section 4).

3. Who was actually affected

The problem. When an outage hits part of a hall, some candidates lose five minutes and others lose nothing. Giving everyone extra time is unfair to the people who kept working. Giving it on request rewards the loudest.

What fixes it. Look at the data, not the hands. The ExamQR supervisor screen refreshes every few seconds and shows, for each candidate, how long it has been since their answers last reached the server once that passes about a minute. During the outage you see exactly which candidates went quiet and for how long. Note the times, add that time to those candidates, and you have an answer ready when someone asks afterwards.

4. Write the rule before the day

Most arguments after an outage are about fairness, not technology. A short written rule settles them before they start. For example:

• Under two minutes without a connection: no change, candidates keep working.
• Longer than that: affected candidates get the lost time back, measured from the supervisor screen, rounded up to the next minute.
• If most of the room is affected, add the time to the whole room.
• A re-sit only if a candidate could not work for more than an agreed limit, say 15 minutes, and the lost time could not be given back that day.

Read the rule to candidates at the start, along with "keep working, do not close the tab". Calm candidates make far fewer mistakes than panicked ones.

5. When the network cannot be trusted: run the exam on your own network

Some rooms will always be risky: an old computer lab, a hall where 200 phones share one access point, a building where the internet goes down every time it rains. For those, take the internet out of the exam. ExamQR Exam runs the exam on a teacher's PC in the room, and the candidate PCs connect to it over the local network.

Here is what happens when something breaks:

• A cable is pulled or the Wi-Fi drops. The exam app writes each answer to the candidate's own PC first, then sends it to the room server. If the connection drops, the app keeps trying to reconnect and never gives up. When it is back, it sends all the candidate's answers again, so nothing that was saved on the PC goes missing.
• The server PC restarts. The server keeps answers in a database on its disk. After a restart they are still there, and candidates sign in again to carry on.
• A candidate PC dies. The candidate moves to a spare PC and signs in. In locked mode an invigilator approves the move first. Their answers come back from the server, and the clock keeps the same end time. Only answers the dead PC had not yet sent, usually the last few seconds, stay on it.
• The final submission fails. The candidate can save their submission to a file, and a supervisor imports it into that candidate's record.

Nothing in the room needs the internet while the exam runs. You prepare the exam on the ExamQR website, export it as an exam package (encrypted with a password if you like), and open it on the server PC before the day. Afterwards, results and score sheets are exported from the server PC. The setup itself is covered in offline exams on a local network.

6. Rehearse the failure, not just the exam

A rehearsal that goes perfectly tells you very little. Break something on purpose:

• Turn off Wi-Fi on one laptop for two minutes in the middle of a test. Check that the warning appears, that the candidate can keep working, and that the answers arrive when Wi-Fi is back.
• Watch the supervisor screen while you do it, so invigilators know what "disconnected" looks like.
• For a lab exam on the local network, pull a network cable and restart the exam app on one PC, then move a test candidate to a spare PC.
• Count devices per access point. A hall where every candidate also has a phone on the same Wi-Fi needs a separate network for the exam, or cables.

Checklist

• Candidates told: keep working, do not close the tab, do not switch device unless asked.
• A written rule for lost time, read out at the start.
• Invigilators know where the supervisor screen shows who is disconnected and how to add time.
• A rehearsal that includes a dropped connection.
• For rooms with unreliable internet, the exam runs on the local network with ExamQR Exam, with a spare PC ready.

Networks fail. An outage that everyone understands, with a rule written in advance and data to apply it, is a five-minute story. Without those, it turns into a week of complaints. More on running exams: online exams, secure online exams.