Assessment glossary

MCQ (multiple-choice question)

A closed question offering several possible answers, one or more of which are correct; the candidate ticks the ones they accept, and that set of ticks is their answer. A test made of such questions is a multiple-choice questionnaire, and the abbreviation MCQ is used for both the question and the test. A single-answer MCQ has exactly one correct option; a multiple-answer MCQ requires the candidate to tick every correct option and no wrong one. Example: “Which of these four statements about mitosis are correct?”, with two correct options out of four. The format allows instant automatic marking, covers a lot of content in little time and yields statistics for every question. Its quality rests almost entirely on the distractors: wrong options that look plausible to someone who has not understood and are dismissed at once by someone who has. An MCQ measures poorly the ability to produce, structure or justify an argument, and it leaves a share to chance that the marking scheme has to handle: partial credit, negative marking or discordance scoring, depending on the institution's assessment regulations.

Create an MCQ with Evalmee→ Barème par discordance (discordance scoring)

Single-choice question

A variant of the multiple-choice question in which exactly one of the options offered is correct. The candidate can tick only one item, which simplifies the marking scheme and removes partial-credit rules, but increases the role of chance: four options give a twenty-five per cent chance of guessing right.

Short open-answer question

A question calling for a written answer of a few words to a few lines, with no options offered. It removes guessing and forces the candidate to recall rather than recognise, while staying short enough to be marked quickly, either by hand or with automated assistance.

Essay question

A question that calls for a developed argument: an essay, a case study, a proof. It is the only format that measures argument, structure and the ability to draw on several areas of knowledge at once, at the cost of slow marking and a marker-to-marker variability that a rubric exists to reduce.

Mark written answers

True/false question

A closed question with two possible answers. Quick to write and quick to mark, it leaves a fifty per cent chance of guessing right: it is only reliable in series, across many items, and lends itself poorly to assessing nuanced reasoning or partial knowledge.

Matching question

A question asking the candidate to link the elements of two lists: a term and its definition, a date and an event, a molecule and its function. It tests command of a vocabulary or a nomenclature efficiently, and is marked automatically, pair by pair.

Fill-in-the-blanks (cloze) question

A passage of text from which certain words have been removed and which the candidate must restore, either freely or from a list supplied with the question. The format sits between multiple choice and open answer: it demands active recall while still remaining automatically markable.

Item

The elementary unit of a test: a question and the marking scheme attached to it. This is the level at which the statistics of an exam are computed — difficulty, discrimination, correlation with the total score — and therefore the level at which an exam is repaired, question by question.

Distractor

An incorrect option in a multiple-choice question. A good distractor is plausible to anyone who has not understood and clearly ruled out by anyone who has: a distractor nobody ever chooses carries no information and reduces the question to a narrower choice.

Question bank

A reservoir of indexed, reusable questions, classified by topic, level or competency. It allows an exam to be assembled by random draw, papers to vary from one session to the next, and the statistical history that makes a question reliable to accumulate, item by item.

Marking scheme

The rule that converts a candidate's answers into a mark. It sets the number of points per question, any penalties, and the way partial credit is awarded. Published before the exam, it constitutes the examiner's commitment as to what will be rewarded.

→ Barème par discordance (discordance scoring)

Criterion-referenced marking scheme

A marking scheme that distributes points across explicit criteria — accuracy, method, writing, justification — rather than on an overall impression of the paper. Each criterion is marked separately, which makes the final mark decomposable, explainable to the candidate and comparable from one marker to another.

Barème par discordance (discordance scoring)

A way of marking multiple-choice questions, common in the French PASS, LAS and former PACES health tracks, where the mark depends on the number of discordances with the expected answer: an item ticked wrongly, or a correct item left blank. Zero discordances scores full marks, and each further discordance drops the mark one tier. Each faculty sets the tiers itself.

Discordance scoring in Evalmee

Rubric

A grid crossing assessment criteria with performance levels described in full sentences, from the weakest to the strongest. The marker places the paper in a cell rather than awarding a figure: the mark becomes the consequence of a description shared in advance.

The rubric locked before AI grading at Evalmee

Assessment grid

A document that fixes, before marking begins, what a piece of work will be judged on and how much each element is worth. In its simplest form it is a list of criteria with points attached: structure of the reasoning, accuracy of the calculations, quality of the writing, compliance with the brief. When each criterion is also described by performance levels, in full sentences from weakest to strongest, the grid becomes a rubric, defined separately in this glossary; in everyday English the word rubric often covers both. An assessment grid serves three purposes: it guides the marker and narrows the gap between markers, it explains the mark to the candidate criterion by criterion, and, shared before the exam, it tells participants what is expected. Example: for a case study in management marked out of 100, four criteria, analysis of the problem 30, relevance of the solutions 30, argumentation 25, presentation 15; each paper receives four sub-marks and one comment per criterion. A grid that is too fine, with fifteen criteria, gets filled in mechanically and loses reliability; four to six independent criteria are usually enough. On an assessment platform the grid is entered once and applied to every paper, which lets AI-assisted marking propose a mark per criterion that the marker confirms or corrects.

The marking grid at Evalmee→ Rubric

Automatic marking

The award of points by the platform, with no human intervention, for questions whose expected answer can be decided in advance: multiple choice, matching, fill-in-the-blanks, a numeric value within a stated tolerance. It makes the result immediate and removes marker-to-marker variability on those items entirely.

AI-assisted marking

Pre-marking of written answers by a language model, which proposes a mark and a justification that the marker validates, amends or rejects. The decision stays human: what the AI saves is the first pass over the paper, never the responsibility for the mark.

AI-assisted marking at Evalmee

Anonymous marking

The removal of the candidate's identity at marking time, the paper carrying nothing but a number. The practice targets biases linked to name, gender, presumed origin or a student's reputation, whose effect on the mark awarded is documented by research.

Anonymous grading of submissions at Evalmee

Double marking

The marking of the same paper by two independent examiners, whose marks are then compared. The gap between the two measures how much of the exam is subjective; beyond a threshold agreed in advance, a third reading or a discussion between markers settles it.

Moderation

A meeting of markers, before or after marking, to align their reading of the marking scheme on sample papers. It reduces the systematic gap between markers — the fact that the same piece of work is worth two points more in one pile of papers than in another.

Floor mark

A guaranteed minimum mark, below which a paper is not taken however weak it is. It limits the destructive effect of a zero on a yearly average and neutralises accumulated penalties, at the cost of compressing the marking scale towards the top.

Negative marking

The deduction of points for wrong answers to a closed question, intended to discourage answering at random. The practice also penalises reasoned risk-taking and, according to the research available on the subject, disadvantages cautious candidates more than it disadvantages the ones who are poorly prepared.

→ Barème par discordance (discordance scoring)

Compensation

The mechanism by which a mark above the pass line in one subject offsets a mark below it in another, within a teaching unit or a semester. Its scope, its threshold and the subjects excluded from it are set by the institution's assessment regulations.

Resit session

A second examination session, open to candidates who did not meet the progression requirements at the end of the first. Its timetable and the rule on whether the original mark is kept or replaced are set by the institution's assessment regulations.

Docimology

The science of assessment and examinations, from the Greek dokimê, a test. The word was proposed in 1922 by the psychologist Henri Piéron, who studied with Henri Laugier how several markers grade the same paper. Their surveys of school-leaving examinations in the 1930s showed wide gaps between markers on one and the same paper, up to about half the marking scale in philosophy, and variations within a single marker depending on the time of day and the paper's place in the pile. Docimology describes these sources of variability: the halo effect, where handwriting or a candidate's reputation colours the mark; the contrast effect, where an average paper looks weak after an excellent one; order effects and marker fatigue; each marker's own severity. It also proposes the remedies: criterion-referenced marking schemes, assessment grids, double marking, anonymised papers, moderation between markers. Example: the same essay given to five markers with no shared instructions comes back with widely scattered marks; with a grid of four criteria described in full sentences, the spread narrows to a few points. Psychometrics, born of the measurement of aptitudes, studies the quality of the tests themselves; docimology keeps the assessor's judgement as its object.

→ Double marking

Item analysis

Statistical examination of the questions in a test after it has been sat: how many candidates got each item right, which ones did, and how that compares with their overall score. It reveals ambiguous questions, useless questions and answer-key errors before they are repeated.

Per-question statistics

Difficulty index

The proportion of candidates answering an item correctly, between zero and one. An index of 0.90 flags a question almost everyone gets right, and therefore one that carries little information; values close to 0.5 maximise a question's ability to separate levels of attainment.

Discrimination index

A measure of a question's ability to tell strong candidates from weak ones, computed as the gap in success rates between the highest and the lowest overall scorers. An index of zero or below flags a defective item: badly worded, or with a wrong answer key.

Item-total correlation

The correlation between success on a question and the score obtained on the rest of the test, often expressed as a point-biserial coefficient. It shows whether the item measures the same thing as the exam as a whole; a low value flags an item that is off-topic.

Reliability

The consistency of a measurement: how far the same candidate would obtain a comparable score on sitting the test again, with other questions of the same kind or in front of a different marker. An unreliable exam produces marks part of which is nothing but noise.

Cronbach's alpha

A coefficient summarising the internal consistency of a test, that is, how far its items measure a single dimension. It generally varies between zero and one and rises mechanically with the number of questions: a high alpha therefore does not on its own attest to validity.

Validity

The degree to which a test really measures what it claims to measure and supports the decisions drawn from it. An exam can be perfectly reliable and have no validity: it then measures something very stable, but not the competency it claims to assess.

Content validity

The fit between the questions asked and the domain the exam is supposed to cover. It is established before the exam is sat, by comparing the spread of items against the syllabus or the competency framework: an exam covering three chapters out of twelve has no content validity.

Standard error of measurement

The margin of uncertainty attached to a candidate's score, expressed in the units of the mark. It is a reminder that eleven and twelve may not be distinguishable, and an invitation not to base a pass-or-fail decision on a gap smaller than that margin.

Standardised score

A mark brought onto a common scale, usually by subtracting the group mean and then dividing by the standard deviation. It allows candidates assessed on different papers or in different sessions to be compared, by placing each one relative to the distribution of their own group.

Differential item functioning

A situation in which, at equal levels of competency, candidates from different groups do not have the same probability of succeeding on an item. Differential functioning flags a potential bias — cultural, linguistic, gendered — lodged in the wording of the question rather than in the competency assessed.

Diagnostic assessment

An assessment placed before teaching or training begins, in order to establish what learners already know and what they lack. It does not count towards progression: its result serves to form groups, to adjust the pace, to route learners to a pathway, or to identify missing prerequisites before they block the rest of the programme. It differs from formative assessment in its timing, before learning rather than during it, and from summative assessment in its function, informing rather than sanctioning. Example: before a statistics module, a twenty-question quiz on fractions, percentages and reading a chart; the participants who fail the percentages take a refresher session before the first class. To be useful, a diagnostic assessment must cover the programme's real prerequisites, not its content, and return a result that reads by skill rather than as a single mark: an overall score of fifty per cent does not say what to revise. In vocational training, the placement test at entry is its most common form; compared with an end-of-course assessment, it also serves to measure progress.

Placement tests→ Placement test

Placement test

A test taken at the start of a course or training programme to locate each participant against the objectives of the pathway: what they already master, what they lack, and therefore where to begin. It is the form diagnostic assessment takes in vocational training. A placement test differs from a level test, which ranks a person on a general scale, A2 or B1 in a language for instance, with no reference to a particular course; placement measures the gap between what a participant brings on entry and the content of a given programme. Its result is not a mark that counts: it serves to adapt the duration, the pace or the modules, to exempt participants from what is already acquired, and as a baseline for measuring progress at the end of the course. Example: before a thirty-hour spreadsheet course, a fifteen-question test spread over formulas, references, sorting and charts; a participant who passes the first two blocks skips the first day. Quality frameworks for training providers generally ask that needs and prior achievements be identified on entry to the programme; the test, its grid and the report handed to the participant are the usual evidence. In the UK and the US, colleges use placement tests to assign students to the right level of a course, most often in mathematics, writing and languages.

Source: College Board — ACCUPLACER placement testsPlacement tests with Evalmee

Formative assessment

An assessment carried out during learning, whose function is to inform learner and teacher about what is currently being acquired. Its useful output is the feedback, not the mark: it is frequent, low-stakes, and serves to correct course while there is still time to do so. The term comes from Michael Scriven's work in 1967, taken up by Benjamin Bloom, which sets the assessment that forms against the assessment that takes stock. In practice a formative assessment is recognised by three traits: fast, precise feedback on every answer, a result that carries little or no weight in the final mark, and a teaching decision taken from the errors observed. Example: a ten-question quiz at the end of every session, marked automatically, with the reason for the correct answer shown at once; the teacher reads the per-question statistics and returns, in the next class, to the notion that half the group missed. The testing effect strengthens the case: testing yourself consolidates memory more than re-reading does. The same question can serve in a formative or a summative setting; what decides is the use made of the result, not the format.

Formative and continuous assessment

Summative assessment

An assessment that comes at the end of a sequence, a module or a year to take stock of what has been learned and produce a mark that counts. It fixes a result rather than accompanying progress, and differs from formative assessment in its function, not in the format of the questions asked. The word comes from sum: the mark summarises what has been learned, and it serves to decide, to pass a module, to rank, to admit, to award a title. When that decision conditions a degree or a certification, the more precise term is certification assessment. Example: the final exam of a contract law course, two hours, one case study and ten short questions, marked out of 100 and weighing sixty per cent of the module mark, the rest coming from continuous assessment. Because its mark has consequences, a summative assessment demands more than a formative one: a marking scheme published in advance, identical sitting conditions for everyone, identification of the candidate, a traceable marking process and a route for appeals. An item analysis after the exam remains useful: a question that the strongest candidates miss more often than the others points to an ambiguous wording or a wrong answer key.

→ Certification assessment

Certification assessment

An assessment whose result determines the award of a title, a degree or a certification. The stakes impose stronger requirements on candidate identification, on the fairness of sitting conditions, on the traceability of marking and on how long completed papers are retained afterwards.

Certification and degree exams

Continuous assessment

A mode of assessment that spreads marking across several exercises over time rather than concentrating it in a single final exam. It smooths the effect of one poor performance and gives regular measurement points, at the cost of a heavier organisational and marking load.

Ipsative assessment

An assessment that compares a learner with their own earlier results rather than with a standard or with their peers. It makes individual progress visible, which makes it useful in vocational training and in remedial work, but it allows no ranking between candidates.

Peer assessment

An arrangement in which learners assess one another's work against a supplied rubric. The exercise works on the criteria as much as on the content; its reliability depends closely on how precise the rubric is and on having enough assessors per piece of work.

Self-assessment

A learner's appraisal of their own work against explicit criteria. It develops the ability to judge where one stands, a condition of genuine autonomy, but its results correlate weakly with external assessment for as long as the criteria have not been worked on beforehand.

Testing effect

The phenomenon whereby testing yourself on a piece of content improves your retention of it more durably than rereading it does. Active recall consolidates the memory trace, which makes frequent assessment an instrument of learning in its own right, and not only an instrument of measurement.

Bloom's taxonomy

A classification of learning objectives by level of mental operation, from recalling knowledge through to creating, by way of understanding, applying, analysing and evaluating. It is used to check that an exam does not question only the first of those levels.

Constructive alignment

Coherence between the learning objectives announced, the activities offered and the assessments that close a course. Misalignment is easy to spot: the course works on case analysis, the exam asks for definitions, and so students revise the definitions rather than the analysis.

Learning outcomes

A statement of what a learner must be able to do at the end of a course, written with an observable action verb. Written that way, learning outcomes translate directly into assessment criteria, which an objective phrased in terms of "knowing" does not allow.

Competency-based approach

The organisation of a course and its assessment around competencies — capacities to act in a given situation — rather than around subject content. Assessment then takes the form of complex, contextualised tasks, judged against a rubric rather than on a total of correct answers.

Remote proctoring

The set of arrangements that make it possible to supervise a candidate sitting outside an exam centre: video and audio capture, screen monitoring, detection of atypical behaviour. The level chosen must stay proportionate to the stakes of the exam and to the data it leads you to collect.

Proctoring at Evalmee

Proctoring

The supervision of an exam sat remotely, on the candidate's own computer, to guarantee that the mark belongs to the person enrolled. The word covers a family of arrangements rather than one product: depending on the set-up, an identity check at the start, video and audio capture through the webcam, monitoring of the screen or of the open tabs, and an analysis of the session's events. Three levels are distinguished. Live proctoring: a human invigilator follows candidates in real time and can intervene. Record-and-review proctoring: the session is recorded and reviewed afterwards by an examiner. Automated proctoring: algorithms flag atypical events, face absent, second person, window switched, which a person must then examine. Example: for a remote end-of-module exam, the institution opts for an identity document check by the invigilator, tab locking and automated flags reviewed by the teacher, with no analysis of gaze or emotions. Wherever the GDPR applies, the frame is the same: the institution is the data controller, the arrangement must stay proportionate to the stakes of the exam and collect no more than that justifies (article 5), candidates must be informed beforehand (article 13), no decision with a significant effect may be taken by a machine alone (article 22), and the processing usually calls for a data protection impact assessment (article 35).

Source: EUR-Lex — Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR)How Evalmee proctors an exam→ Remote proctoring

Automated proctoring

Supervision carried out by algorithms that analyse the video feed, the sound and the activity on the device in order to flag atypical events: face absent, second person present, window switched. The flags produced are leads to be investigated, never proof of cheating in themselves. The automation lies in the analysis, never in the decision: drawing a consequence from a flag without a person having examined it would be a fully automated decision, governed by article 22 of the GDPR.

Live proctoring

Supervision by a human invigilator who follows candidates in real time during the session and can intervene, ask for a sweep of the room or stop the exam. It is the most expensive mode, and the only one that allows an incident to be dealt with as it happens.

Record-and-review proctoring

Recording of the session, reviewed afterwards by an examiner, usually guided by the moments that automated analysis has flagged. It costs less than live supervision and leaves a verifiable trace, but it allows no intervention at all while the exam is being sat.

Browser lockdown

Restriction of the candidate's software environment during the exam: full screen imposed, tab switching blocked or flagged, copy-paste and printing disabled. The measure raises the cost of opportunistic cheating, but can do nothing about a second device sitting next to the computer.

Secure exam browser

A dedicated application that replaces the ordinary browser during the exam and locks down the workstation. It offers stronger control than a simple in-browser restriction, but requires an installation, rules out certain devices and shifts part of the technical support burden onto the institution.

Randomisation

Random drawing of questions from a bank and of the order of the options, so that two neighbouring candidates do not see the same paper. It is the cheapest defence against copying between candidates; it assumes questions of comparable difficulty if it is to stay fair.

Audit trail

A timestamped log of every event in a session: sign-in, display of each question, successive answers, network incidents, invigilator actions. It is what makes it possible to reconstruct a contested exam and to answer a complaint with something other than memory.

Candidate authentication

Verification that the person sitting the exam is the person enrolled: named credentials, sign-in through the institution's directory, checking an identity document, sometimes a biometric comparison. The level of verification is set by the stakes of the exam and by the data it makes it legitimate to process.

Exam misconduct

Any conduct aimed at obtaining a mark that does not reflect the candidate's own work: unauthorised documents, communication with a third party, impersonation, undeclared use of a generative tool. How it is classified and what follows from it are set by the institution's regulations.

Plagiarism

Taking someone else's work without acknowledging the source, and presenting it as your own production. Similarity tools measure overlaps of text, which is a lead and not a verdict: classifying something as plagiarism requires an examination of intent and of context.

LMS (learning management system)

A platform that hosts an institution's courses, enrolments and learner tracking. It is students' daily point of entry, which makes integration with the LMS — rather than the standalone quality of an exam tool — the practical condition of that tool actually being adopted.

Moodle

An open-source learning platform, distributed under the GPL licence and very widely deployed in French-speaking higher education. Its openness explains why it serves as the reference for integration: an assessment tool that does not plug into it forces teachers to keep two lists of students.

Source: moodle.org

LTI 1.3

A 1EdTech standard that lets a learning platform embed an external tool without creating a separate account for each tool. Version 1.3 bases the security of the exchange on the 1EdTech security framework, built on OAuth 2.0 and JSON Web Token credentials.

Source: 1EdTech — Learning Tools InteroperabilityEvalmee integrations

LTI Advantage

A set of three services added to LTI 1.3 by 1EdTech: Assignment and Grade Services, which creates the gradebook columns and posts results back into them; Names and Role Provisioning Services 2.0, which exposes users and their roles; Deep Linking 2.0, which selects specific content inside the external tool.

Source: 1EdTech — LTI Advantage

SCORM

A set of technical specifications published by the ADL Initiative to make e-learning content interoperable and reusable from one platform to another. It describes how content is packaged and the run-time interface through which a module reports learner progress to the LMS hosting it.

xAPI (Experience API)

IEEE standard 9274.1.1-2023, derived from the ADL Initiative's xAPI specification, which defines a JSON data model and a web interface for recording learning experiences to a Learning Record Store. Unlike SCORM, it also records activities that took place outside any LMS.

Source: IEEE 9274.1.1-2023

QTI (Question and Test Interoperability)

A 1EdTech standard describing an exchange format for questions, tests and results. It allows a question bank to be carried from one system to another without re-keying it, which makes a library of items independent of the platform that produced it.

Source: 1EdTech — QTI

Single sign-on (SSO)

A mechanism allowing a user to sign in to several services with their institutional account, through protocols such as SAML, CAS, Shibboleth or OpenID Connect. It removes the need to create dedicated passwords and makes revoking an access immediate when an account is closed.

SSO and connectors

REST API

A programming interface through which a third-party system reads and writes a platform's data using HTTP requests. It makes it possible to automate what the graphical interface does by hand: creating sessions, enrolling candidates, posting results into a student records system.

Digital accessibility

The design of a digital service so that it can be used by people with disabilities: compatibility with screen readers, full keyboard navigation, sufficient contrast, content that is never conveyed by sight or sound alone. It is verified by audit, not by a statement of intent.

RGAA (French digital accessibility standard)

Référentiel général d'amélioration de l'accessibilité, the reference standard issued under article 47 of the French law of 11 February 2005. It translates the legal obligations of digital accessibility into control criteria backed by technical tests; its version 4 was adopted on 20 September 2019.

Source: accessibilite.numerique.gouv.fr

Accessibility statement

The public document that a digital service subject to the RGAA must publish to declare its state of compliance. Three states exist: full compliance when every criterion is met, partial compliance from half the criteria upwards, and non-compliance below that or in the absence of a valid audit.

Source: accessibilite.numerique.gouv.fr — accessibility statement

Tiers-temps (French statutory extra exam time)

The extension of exam time granted to a candidate with a disability. The French code de l'éducation provides that it may not exceed a third of the time normally allowed, a longer extension remaining possible exceptionally, on the reasoned request of the doctor who examines the situation.

Source: Code de l'éducation, articles D351-27 to D351-31

Aménagements d'épreuves (French exam access arrangements)

The full set of adaptations available to a candidate with a disability: adapted material conditions, technical and human assistance, spreading exams over several sessions, retention of marks for five years, adapted or waived papers. The authority organising the exam decides and notifies its decision.

Source: Code de l'éducation, articles D351-27 to D351-31

Universal design for learning

An approach that plans, from the design stage, several ways of presenting content, of engaging with a task and of demonstrating what has been learned, rather than adding adjustments after the fact. Applied to assessment, it reduces the number of situations calling for individual treatment.

Qualiopi (French training quality certification)

A quality certification mark issued by an accredited certification body, covering the processes of providers delivering activities that contribute to skills development. Since 1 January 2022 it conditions access to public or pooled funding, and it rests on the Référentiel national qualité, the national quality framework.

Source: Ministère du Travail — Qualiopi

RNCP (French national register of professional certifications)

The Répertoire national des certifications professionnelles, drawn up and kept up to date by France compétences. The certifications registered in it are classified by qualification level and by field of activity, and they are made up of competency units that can be assessed and validated separately.

Source: France compétences — professional certification

Répertoire spécifique (French register of complementary certifications)

A second national register drawn up by France compétences, which lists the certifications and authorisations corresponding to professional skills that complement professional certifications. Registration follows an application, after the opinion of the competent commission, for a maximum period of five years.

Source: Code du travail, article L6113-6

France compétences (French vocational training authority)

A public administrative body created on 1 January 2019 by the French law of 5 September 2018, and the sole national governance authority for vocational training and apprenticeship. Its governance is quadripartite and its remit is to fund, to regulate and to improve the training on offer.

Source: France compétences — its role

Bloc de compétences (French competency unit)

Under the French code du travail, a homogeneous and coherent set of competencies contributing to the autonomous exercise of an occupational activity, and capable of being assessed and validated separately. Each certification is defined by an activity framework, a competency framework and an assessment framework.

Source: Code du travail, article L6113-1

Modalités de contrôle des connaissances (French assessment regulations)

The assessment rules adopted by a French higher education institution. The code de l'éducation provides that they be set no later than the end of the first month of the teaching year and may no longer be changed during that year, assessment being by continuous assessment, by a final exam, or by both.

Source: Code de l'éducation, article L613-1

Hcéres (French higher education and research evaluation authority)

Haut Conseil de l'évaluation de la recherche et de l'enseignement supérieur, an independent public authority in France. It evaluates higher education institutions, research organisations and research units, as well as the programmes they run and the degrees they award, following an evaluation methodology based on peer review.

Source: hceres.fr

CTI (French engineering degree accreditation commission)

Commission des titres d'ingénieur, an independent body charged by French law since 1934 with evaluating engineering schools with a view to accrediting them, with developing the quality of their programmes and with promoting the title of engineer. It issues an opinion for public schools and a decision for private ones.

Source: cti-commission.fr

CEFDG (French management degree evaluation commission)

Commission d'évaluation des formations et diplômes de gestion, the sole national body competent to evaluate the quality of programmes at private and chamber-of-commerce management schools. Under joint ministerial supervision, it examines state-endorsed degrees and those that confer the grade of licence or master.

Source: cefdg.fr

Data minimisation

The GDPR principle under which, in the CNIL's wording, personal data must be adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which it is processed. Applied to remote proctoring, it requires collecting only what the stakes of the exam justify.

Source: CNIL — data minimisation

Analyse d'impact (AIPD, French data protection impact assessment)

Analyse d'impact relative à la protection des données: according to the CNIL, a tool for building a processing operation that complies with the GDPR and respects privacy. It is required for processing operations likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of the people concerned.

Source: CNIL — AIPD

Data retention period

The length of time personal data may remain in an active database. The CNIL points out that it is determined by the purpose of the processing: at the end of that period the data must be deleted, anonymised or archived, which bears directly on remote proctoring recordings.

Source: CNIL — retention periods