THEIA platform, a seamless way to develop exam sessions

THEIA platform is a digital examination platform founded in Grenoble in 2007 and now present in 7 countries.  The THEIA project is founded on core academic and university values, such as sharing, equal opportunity, and fostering critical thinking. 

This innovative technology allows synchronous exam sessions to be delivered to tens of thousands of students across multiple campuses. One of the most significant examples of their success is that the THEIA platform is used to digitalize the 6th year’s national medical exam for French medical faculties.

With a focus on combining technology and pedagogy to meet the needs of its partner institutions, THEIA has seen success with over 250,000 users and 80 million exams completed. It delivers 50,000 exams per week. 

This extensive experience and ability to handle large-scale examinations makes THEIA a reliable and trusted choice for institutions looking to digitize their examination process. 

What can you do on the THEIA platform?

THEIA streamlines the examination process by digitizing every step of the workflow. This includes creating and sharing questions and question banks, administering exams (in-person or remotely), and managing post-exam tasks such as grading, grader management, and providing analytics. The THEIA platform supports different typologies of exams, including multiple-choice, dissertations, and competency assessments.

Exam sessions made easy for teachers and students

THEIA platform aims to empower faculties to share educational content and give students access to formative and end-of-year assessments at any time. This aligns with the overall goal of improving equal opportunities for all students.

Benefits of using THEIA

Taking all this into account, we can see that using the THEIA platform brings a series of benefits, such as:

1. Logistics: THEIA allows for the efficient management of thousands of exams, eliminating the need for printing or physical storage. The platform enables institutions to administer, collect, and correct exams digitally, making the process more streamlined and efficient.
2. Flexibility: it also provides flexibility in administering exams, allowing for live exams for in-person and remote sessions. This will enable institutions to adapt to different learning environments and provide a seamless examination experience for students.
3. Organization: As we’ve mentioned before, THEIA platform is designed to align with institutions’ workflow, simplifying the examination process and saving time for organizations. Its customizable features allow institutions to match the platform to their specific needs and streamline their examination organization.
4. Reduce costs: By streamlining the organization process and eliminating the need for physical materials, the platform helps institutions to control and reduce costs.
5. Modernization: By providing digital examination solutions, the platform helps institutions keep pace with the modern world and prepare students for the digital work age.
6. Support: THEIA offers personalized support to institutions to assist with implementing and managing the platform. This support includes guidance on how to effectively use the platform and help to manage the change towards the digital examination process.

Exam surveillance with SMOWL

Integrating THEIA and SMOWL creates a powerful solution for large-scale, complex examination sessions. THEIA platform enables the administration of exams, while SMOWL’s proctoring technology allows institutions to conduct remote exams at scale without putting a strain on bandwidth, thus reducing the technological gap between students. Together, both technologies provide a comprehensive solution for academic institutions.

THEIA platform and SMOWL proctoring tools integration has received positive feedback from users. The combination provided a seamless user experience, with a simple setup and quick review process. To give an example, THEIA remarks that “the use of pictures as a proctoring method resulted in no load issues”. 

GDPR compliance for training online

Both THEIA and SMOWL, as organizations operating within the EU, have implemented technical and organizational measures to ensure that all the processes are GDPR compliant. 

This means that personal data be processed fairly, transparently, and lawfully and that proper security measures are in place to protect personal data. If you want to learn more about how SMOWL complies with GDPR, we invite you to read this article. 

Also, for in-person exams

Both THEIA and SMOWL tools can also be used in in-person exams when the examinees use a computer or a tablet. 

While THEIA is an ideal platform for taking exams through the computer in a face-to-face setting, SMOWL can provide monitoring technology tools during these exams. And all of this without giving up physical supervision.

In this way, examiners can monitor what is happening on the students’ computers who are taking the exam in the room: the programs they have open, the browser tabs, if they have copied and pasted, if they use AI, etc.

A bright future for remote exams

Many institutions are now betting on using digital solutions to improve the efficiency of their examination process. While they are accustomed to conducting face-to-face sessions, they seek to take advantage of the benefits of digital solutions. 

As soon as there is a need to run large-scale recurring exams in a hybrid format, with some students composing in-person and others remote, they require a platform like THEIA and SMOWL to monitor remote students.

THEIA and SMOWL closely collaborate with their partners to understand their evolving needs and translate them into new features. The focus is on enhancing pedagogical practices through the expansion of the offerings.

To summarize, the collaboration between both platforms is the ultimate digital exam innovation, even in computer-based in-person evaluations, where THEIA allows creating all types of exams, analyzing data, providing grades, etc., in a much more effective way.

If we add the SMOWL tool to this equation, we could, for instance, block a student’s browser if it detects that they are using AI tools. This makes the experience much more intuitive, complete, and safe for teachers and students.

Do you want to know how it can work in your company or institution? Contact us and try it for free!