Welcome
What openCBT is, and where to start.
openCBT runs your examinations on computers, in your own hall, on your own server. Students sit papers on the hall machines; nothing depends on the internet while they write.
This guide is for the person who looks after the exam server at a school. It assumes no knowledge of Docker or databases. Where a step needs care, it says so.
The two parts
The exam server stands in your ICT hall. It holds your courses, your students and your papers, and the hall machines connect to it over your own network. It is switched on for exams and off afterwards, like any other machine in the room.
The cloud companion is optional and online. Lecturers use it to write papers and mark essays from home. Nothing moves between it and your hall server on its own: somebody at the school presses a button when they want papers brought down or results sent up.
A school can run the exam server alone. The cloud only adds working from home.
Where to start
Setting up the exam server
What you need, and the steps from a bare machine to the first sign-in.
An exam day
Switching on, checking the server is well, and what to do afterwards.
Backups
Taking one, keeping it somewhere safe, and what happens if the disk fails.
Working with the cloud
Bringing papers down, sending results up, marking from home.
Retiring a past session
Freeing space at the end of a semester without losing any results.
When something looks wrong
The handful of things that go wrong, and what each one means.
Two things worth knowing now
Take a backup after every exam day, and copy it off the server. One button in Settings, one download onto a flash drive. A backup that only exists on the exam server does not survive that server.
The server keeps the only copy of a sitting until you back it up. It is not a fragile machine, but it is a machine. Treat the backup as part of closing the hall, like locking the door.