Paper exams⁠

PrairieTest supports paper exams: exams students take on physical paper at a testing center, with proctors uploading scanned submissions afterward. They aren't delivered through PrairieLearn.

Paper exams are center-administered. Course-administered sessions may exist for an exam marked as paper, but physical paper handling for those sessions happens outside PrairieTest.

Roles and responsibilities⁠

Action	Performed by
Enable paper exams for the center	Center Exam Editor or higher
Allow paper exams for a course at the center	Center Exam Editor or higher
Allow paper exams at a location	Center Exam Editor or higher
Mark an exam as a paper exam	Course Editor or higher
Upload, replace, or remove the exam PDF	Course Editor+ or Center Exam Editor+
Print exam PDFs for a session	Any center staff
Upload, replace, or remove a student submission	Any center staff
View exam PDFs and student submissions	Any center staff; course Proctor+

Course Proctors can view paper-exam content for exams in their course, but they cannot disable paper exams, manage exam PDFs, or upload/replace/remove student submissions.

How paper-exam support is turned on⁠

Paper exams are controlled at three levels, from broadest to most specific:

1. The center decides whether it handles paper exams at all.
2. Each course at the center decides whether its exams can be paper-based.
3. Each location decides whether students can take paper exams there.

All three must be on for a student to reserve a paper exam: the center supports paper exams, the course is allowed to use them, and the location the student picks supports them. The sections below cover each level.

Enabling paper exams for your center⁠

Paper-exam support is off for a new center. A Center Exam Editor turns it on for the whole center first:

1. From the testing center, go to Settings, then the General tab.
2. Find the Paper exams row, click the edit icon, check Allow paper exams, and Save.

While this is off, none of the paper-exam tools appear anywhere in the center — there's no paper column on the Courses page, no paper options on locations, and no paper badges or printing prompts on sessions.

Turning it back off turns paper exams off everywhere underneath it: every course and every location in the center has its paper-exam setting cleared in the same step. You'd have to re-enable each one individually to use paper exams again, so only disable it when the center is done with paper exams entirely.

Enabling paper exams for a center course⁠

With the center enabled, a Center Exam Editor enables paper-exam support for each course that needs it:

1. From the testing center, go to the Courses tab.
2. Locate the course and find the Paper exams column.
3. Click the edit icon and check Allow paper exams in this center course, then Save.

Turning this back off is not possible while any paper exam is currently linked into the center course. The error message lists the relevant exams so you can address them directly.

Enabling support has no immediate effect on existing exams; it merely unlocks the option for course staff to configure exams as paper-based.

Allowing paper exams at a location⁠

Students can only take a paper exam at a location that supports paper exams. With the center enabled, a Center Exam Editor turns this on per location:

1. From the testing center, go to Locations and open the location.
2. On the Settings tab, find the Paper exams row, click the edit icon, check Allow paper exams at this location, and Save.

A location that doesn't support paper exams simply won't be offered to students reserving one. A center can host paper exams in some rooms but not others, or accept paper exams from other centers without enabling them for its own courses.

Uploading and managing an exam PDF⁠

Once course staff mark an exam as paper-based from the course exam settings page, Center Exam Editors can upload, replace, or remove the active exam PDF from the center exam settings page:

1. Go to the testing center, then Exams, then open the exam.
2. Find the Paper exam PDF card under the Settings tab.
3. Choose a PDF and click Upload exam PDF.

Replacement and removal work the same way:

• Replace swaps the active PDF for a new one.
• Remove, after confirmation, unlinks the active PDF from the exam.

PDF uploads are limited to 10 MB. Files that aren't valid PDFs are rejected, even if named .pdf.

Day-of: preparing printed exams⁠

On the morning of a paper-exam session, the Sessions by day view has a printing-prep step:

1. Go to Sessions in the testing center and click the day's date.

2. If any session that day includes a paper exam, you'll see an info alert at the top:

   Paper exams required for N sessions today.

3. Click View or print exams to open a modal listing every paper exam reserved that day, with the number of reservations for the day and an Open PDF link.

Use this view to print enough copies for the day's reservations. The day view also tags each session that contains a paper exam with a small Paper exams badge.

Running a paper-exam session⁠

Open the session's Reservations page. When any reservation in the session is for a paper exam, two additional columns appear:

• Exam PDF: an Open PDF link to the particular exam PDF for that student (or a "Not uploaded" indicator). Useful when a single session contains multiple paper exams and a proctor needs to grab the right printed exam for a particular student.
• Submission: Once the student is checked in, the Upload link opens a modal for attaching the scanned PDF. Once a submission has been uploaded, the cell shows View and Edit links; Edit opens a modal to replace or remove the active submission.

Check-in⁠

Check-in is the same as for any other exam. When a paper-exam student checks in via card scan, the swipe-card check-in page also shows a large Paper exam needed warning so proctors know to hand them a printed exam rather than seat them at a workstation.

Starting the session⁠

Click Start exam when the session is ready. For paper-exam reservations, this opens each student's access window automatically, as there is no student-side "Start exam" button. The end time is derived from each student's individual duration (including any accommodation), so accommodated students still get their full time.

Uploading scanned submissions⁠

After scanning a student's completed printed exam (as a single PDF), upload it from the Submission cell on the reservations page:

1. Click Upload in the student's Submission cell.
2. In the modal, verify the student's name and UID, select the PDF, and click Upload submission.

After a submission exists, the cell changes to View and Edit. Edit lets you replace the PDF or remove the submission. There's one active submission per student per session; replacing swaps the file, and removing asks for confirmation first.

Reviewing submissions⁠

• For a per-exam aggregate view, open the exam in the testing center and click the Paper Submissions tab.
  • If any checked-in student is still missing a submission, the page shows an Upload submission button; the modal lets you choose the student/session and attach the PDF.
  • Existing rows show each submission with the student, session, and upload time, plus View, Replace, and Remove controls.
  • Multiple submissions for the same student across sessions are listed chronologically — expected when an exam is interrupted and resumed later.

Exporting submissions⁠

From the Paper Submissions tab, click Export all PDFs to download a zip archive of every submission for the exam at the center. Each PDF in the archive is named with the student's UID and the exam name. This button is only visible when at least one submission exists.

Things to keep in mind⁠

• One active exam PDF. The PDF you upload is the copy proctors print and download; replacing or removing it changes which PDF they get.
• A student can have submissions in more than one session. That's expected when an exam is interrupted and resumed later. PrairieTest keeps every submission so staff can reconcile what happened.

Permissions reference⁠

In the table below, Enable/allow paper exams covers all three toggles — turning paper exams on for the center, allowing them for a course, and allowing them at a location. They all take the same role.

Role	Enable/allow paper exams	Manage exam PDF	View exam PDF	View submissions	Manage submissions
Center Owner	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Center Exam Editor	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Center Proctor Editor	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Center Student Editor	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Center Proctor	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes

Access is not limited to a session's assigned proctors; any scoped center staff can manage submissions for any session in their center, since some centers schedule outside of PrairieTest.