A GDPR-compliant Google Forms alternative for graded quizzes and exams

Google Forms is free with a Google account, is shared through a link, and its Quiz mode assigns points to multiple-choice questions, grades them automatically and shows the participant the correct answers. Responses land in a Google Sheets spreadsheet. For a survey, a satisfaction questionnaire or a practice quiz, it is hard to beat.

Its limits are those of a form. A question's points never go below zero, question and option order can be shuffled but nothing is drawn at random from a bankQuestion bankA 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.See the full definition, and there is no built-in timer: the form stays open until you close it by hand. Locked mode, which prevents opening another tab, exists only on Chromebooks managed by a Google Workspace for Education institution.

A practice quiz lives with all of that. An exam whose grade counts does not: it needs a grading scheme, a different paper per participant, a time limit, proportionate proctoring and a script that can be archived and challenged.

Three of these tools are form builders, like Google Forms, differing in what they give away and where they host. The last two are assessment tools. Each card says who the tool is for, whether it has a free plan, and what it does not do.

Seven rows, the ones a head of teaching looks at before running an exam in a tool. Google Forms is not caught out here: it is a form, and it does what a form should do.

Evalmee is the right choice when the grade counts. It is not the right choice when you want to collect answers rather than grade them.

Graded continuous assessmentContinuous assessmentA mode of assessment that spreads grading 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 organizational and grading load.See the full definition is the first case: an MCQ whose points go into the average needs a penaltyNegative markingThe deduction of points for wrong answers to a closed question, intended to discourage answering at random. The practice also penalizes 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.See the full definition fixed before the exam, a different paper per participant through randomizationRandomizationRandom drawing of questions from a bank and of the order of the options, so that two neighboring candidates do not see the same paper. It is the cheapest defense against copying between candidates; it assumes questions of comparable difficulty if it is to stay fair.See the full definition, and a script that can be challenged. The exam is the second: a midterm, a certification, a competitive exam, with proctoringProctoringThe supervision of an exam sat remotely, on the candidate's own computer, to guarantee that the grade 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, screen sharing, monitoring of the open tabs, and an analysis of the session's events. Three levels are distinguished. Live proctoring: a human proctor 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 proctor, 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).See the full definition set to match the stakes, remote or in a room. The placement test at the start of a course is the third: a rubricRubricA grid crossing assessment criteria with performance levels described in full sentences, from the weakest to the strongest. The grader places the paper in a cell rather than awarding a figure: the grade becomes the consequence of a description shared in advance.See the full definition returns a grade per criterion, and the export serves as evidence. The grading scheme, random draw and proctoring are gathered on the online MCQ page; proctoring alone is detailed on the exam proctoring page.

Evalmee is not the right choice for a survey, a satisfaction questionnaire, an event registration or a call for feedback: there is no free-form form, every person is a participant enrolled in a session, and every answer is an answer to be graded. For those uses, Google Forms and the three form builders above do better.

Evalmee does not import a Google Form. The AI-assisted import, however, reads a Word, PDF or Excel document and offers its questions one by one, an Excel template accepts a full paper with its points, and a Moodle XML export is taken as it is.

The work is therefore to copy your questions into a document or into the Excel template, then to import them. Once inside Evalmee, the paper is structured into sections and exercises, the grading scheme is set on the multiple-choice questions, and participants are enrolled by importing their addresses or through a self-enrollment link. The import paths are detailed on the create an exam page; the plans, on the pricing page.