Ans helps you design, deliver, and grade exams in one web-based assessment platform. You can create both digital and paper-based tests, reuse questions from shared question banks with your teaching team, and review detailed analytics at question and test level to improve your assessments over time.
- Functions
- Collect student work | Create materials | Quiz / quick check
- Via Canvas
- Standalone
- Difficulty of use
- Moderate
Examples of use in your education
Use Ans to build question banks, compose tests, and arrange how students sit formative or summative exams. This usage mainly builds on ANS’s test authoring, exam delivery and quiz functions.
You can apply this tool in your teaching in several concrete ways:
Shared item banks - Work together as a teaching team to create shared item banks. Reuse and adapt exam questions across cohorts while keeping assessments aligned with your programme’s learning outcomes.
Digital exam delivery - Create digital exams in Ans so that on-campus tests, remote tests, and resits can take place within the same environment. Where faculties use print-and-scan workflows, these are usually arranged separately and may involve additional faculty approval and costs.
Question randomisation - Use question pools and randomisation options to generate different versions of an exam per student, reducing the risk of copying in large-group assessments.
Formative quizzes - For formative practice, release shorter, low-stakes quizzes from the item bank so students can rehearse key concepts multiple times during the course.
Tip 1
Design questions in a shared item bank from the start, so improvements made after one exam automatically benefit future cohorts.
Tip 2
Use randomisation only where it does not change the cognitive level of the question, so all students are still assessed on comparable tasks. When you design digital exams, also check accessibility settings and question display carefully so the test remains workable for students with visual impairments or other access needs.
Use ANS to organise marking and moderation efficiently. You can combine automatic scoring with coordinated grading of open questions and checks for consistency.
You can apply this tool in your teaching in several concrete ways:
Automatic grading - Let ANS automatically grade closed questions, and divide open questions between multiple markers so you and your colleagues can correct in parallel.
Marking approach - Choose how you want to mark: per question to focus on consistency across the cohort, or per student to review individual performance holistically.
Structured feedback - Use rubrics and comment fields to give clear, structured feedback on open questions - especially when students need to show reasoning or argumentation.
Print-and-scan marking - Where your faculty uses print-and-scan workflows, scanned scripts can also be processed in ANS so you can mark, moderate, and provide feedback online and anonymously. As this workflow is not generally available for all exams and may involve extra faculty costs, local arrangements should always be checked in advance.
Tip 1
Agree in advance which questions are marked per question and which per student, so each examiner can concentrate on one approach.
Tip 2
Use short, reusable comments for common mistakes to save time while keeping feedback specific and consistent.
Use ANS results and item statistics to inform students about their performance and to improve your future exams and teaching. This usage relies strongly on ANS’s data analysis and reporting functions.
You can apply this tool in your teaching in several concrete ways:
Item analysis - After the exam, use ANS analysis reports to review reliability and item statistics, such as question difficulty and discrimination. These insights help you decide which questions to revise, improve, or remove for future exams.
Result publication - Publish exam results directly in ANS, so students can view their scores and, where permitted, their own answers and feedback in one place. Where appropriate, you can also enable students to ask follow-up questions about their result through the Discussions feature.
Targeted follow-up - Use results from formative tests to identify where students struggle. You can then adjust upcoming lectures or tutorials to spend more time on concepts that many students found challenging.
Trend monitoring - Across multiple exam rounds, teaching teams can use ANS reports to monitor trends over time and see how changes in questions or teaching approaches affect assessment quality and student performance.
Tip 1
After each major exam, schedule a short review meeting to look at item statistics together with other teachers and decide which questions to update in the item bank.
Tip 2
Tell students clearly whether a test is formative or summative and how they should use the results, so they see formative tests as input for learning rather than only as a grade. In practice, the way formative and summative exam types are labelled in ANS may differ across faculties, so local arrangements should always be checked.
How-to videos
How to get started with Ans
How to take your next steps with Ans
How to review per result in a digital test in Ans?
Getting started
- You can find all the relevant information on the official site of Ans.
Support
In case of educational questions, please contact your learning innovator or web team from your faculty.
In case of technical difficulty, please consult the Ans Help Centre.
