Software package

Question bank platform package

A versioned question bank with tags and difficulty, exam assembly by blueprint, timed sittings with navigation rules and auto-save, automatic and manual marking with moderation, results with breakdowns and certificates, candidate cohorts, practice mode and item statistics, ready to configure around your syllabus.

Custom build Concept demo

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Who it is for

Built for

A good fit

Exam boards and awarding organisations running formal assessments, professional and trade certification bodies testing competence before issuing a credential, revision and test-preparation providers selling exam-realistic practice, and training providers who assess their own learners at the end of a course. It suits an exam administrator who schedules sittings and releases results, question authors and reviewers who maintain the bank, markers and moderators who work a queue, and candidates who sit timed exams or practise by topic on their own device.

Also worth knowing

It is less suited to course businesses whose quizzes are a small part of a video course, which have their own package, and to schools wanting classroom homework quizzes. It does not provide webcam proctoring itself; a specialist provider can be connected.

The operational problem it solves

How it runs, step by step

Six weeks before the autumn sitting, a question author drafts twelve new items tagged to the syllabus areas that statistics showed were thin, and submits them for review.

A reviewer edits one stem, which creates version two of that item with a note, approves the set, and the items become available to blueprints.
The exam administrator opens the autumn blueprint, which says forty items spread across six syllabus areas in set proportions with a difficulty mix, and schedules the sitting with a ninety-minute limit, no backward navigation and shuffled options.
Candidates in the cohort receive their sitting details.

On the day, four hundred candidates start within the same ten minutes.

Each receives a paper assembled from the blueprint; every answer is saved as it is given.
One candidate's connection drops at question twenty-three and she resumes on the same question with the clock where it was when the outage began, within the grace rule the administrator set.
When the sitting closes, objective items are marked automatically.
Short-answer items go to the marker queue, where two markers mark each blind; eleven responses differ by more than the margin and land with the moderator, who sees both marks and decides.
The administrator sets the grade boundary, reviews the breakdown by syllabus area, and releases results and certificates at the published time.
The item statistics report shows two questions that almost everyone got right and one that strong candidates got wrong more often than weak ones, and the author flags all three for review before the spring sitting.

Features

What the package does

The package ships as modules that follow an exam from authoring to analysis: the question bank, blueprints and assembly, sittings, marking and moderation, results and certificates, candidates and practice, and statistics. Each module lists what it does; the comparison table shows which variant includes it.

Content and editorial

Question bank with several question typesHold multiple-choice, multiple-response, short-answer and numeric questions in one bank.

Workflow and tasks

Tags, difficulty, review states and version historyTag each item, set its difficulty and review state, and keep a full version history of every change.
Blueprints with proportions per syllabus areaAssemble papers from a blueprint that sets proportions by syllabus area and difficulty, fixed or randomly drawn.
Automatic marking and manual queueObjective items are marked automatically, with numeric tolerances, and anything else goes to a manual marking queue.
Double marking with moderationBlind allocation to two markers and a moderation step. Available as an add-on.

Scheduling

Timed sittings with auto-save and resumeCandidates sit timed papers with navigation rules and shuffling, and answers are saved so they can resume.

Reporting and insights

Results breakdown, grade boundaries and certificatesResults break down by syllabus area against grade boundaries, and certificates carry a verification link.
Item statistics for each questionFacility and discrimination figures for every question show which items work. Available as an add-on.

Accounts and permissions

Candidate accounts and cohortsCandidates have accounts and are grouped into cohorts for sittings and reporting.

Portal and access

Practice mode with explanationsLearners practise by topic with explanations after each answer. Available as an add-on.

Package variants compared

Business Software
Custom Platform

Which features each package variant includes
Feature	Business Software	Custom Platform
Question bank with several question types	Included	Included
Tags, difficulty, review states and version history	Included	Included
Blueprints with proportions per syllabus area	Included	Included
Timed sittings with auto-save and resume	Included	Included
Automatic marking and manual queue	Included	Included
Results breakdown, grade boundaries and certificates	Included	Included
Candidate accounts and cohorts	Included	Included
Double marking with moderation	Optional	Included
Practice mode with explanations	Optional	Optional
Item statistics for each question	Optional	Included

Roles and permissions

Who does what

Exam administrator
- Create blueprints and schedule sittings with time limits and navigation rules
- Manage candidate cohorts and sitting access
- Set grade boundaries and release results and certificates
- Run item statistics and sitting reports
Question author
- Write and edit questions of each type with tags and difficulty
- Submit items for review and see their version history
- See statistics for their own items
- Write explanations for practice mode
Reviewer
- Approve, return or retire submitted items
- Edit items, creating a new version with a note
- Lock approved items against change
Marker
- Work a queue of responses allocated to them without seeing candidate names
- Apply the marking scheme and record a mark with comments
- Flag a response or an item for the moderator
Moderator
- See pairs of marks that differ beyond the margin and decide the final mark
- Review flagged items and responses
- See marker consistency reports
Candidate
- Sit scheduled exams with the clock, navigation rules and auto-save in force
- Resume after a dropped connection within the grace rule
- Practise by topic with explanations where enabled
- See results, breakdowns and download certificates

Example screen

Concept demo

Concept demo of the timed exam sitting screen showing a question, the clock, a progress strip and an auto-save indicator.

The candidate sitting screen: the question and shuffled options, the clock, a progress strip showing answered and unanswered items with backward navigation disabled, and the auto-save indicator confirming the last answer was stored.

Scope and options

What is included and what is extra

In the base package

Question bank with multiple-choice, multiple-response, short-answer and numeric types
Tags, difficulty, review states and full version history per item
Blueprints with proportions per syllabus area and difficulty, fixed or random assembly
Timed sittings with navigation rules, shuffling and auto-save with resume
Automatic marking with numeric tolerances and a manual marking queue
Results with breakdown by area, grade boundaries and certificates with verification
Candidate accounts and cohorts

Common add-ons

Double marking with blind allocation and a moderation step
Practice mode with explanations and topic selection
Item statistics with facility and discrimination per question

Needs custom work

Connection to a remote proctoring provider
Single sign-on for candidates or centres
Essay-type items with rubric-based marking and plagiarism checks
Psychometric analysis beyond the standard item statistics

See the custom development service

Ownership, maintenance and pricing

After the build

Deployment and ownership

The package runs on your own hosting or on hosting we manage for you; the choice is made in the proposal and can be changed later, and hosting is sized for your stated peak concurrency. You own the code, the question bank with its history and all sitting data. Questions, blueprints, responses, marks and results can be exported at any time in standard formats, and the package does not lock you to a provider.

Maintenance

Maintenance is optional and scoped separately from the setup. When taken, it covers security updates to the platform and its dependencies, monitoring during scheduled sittings, backups with restore tests, and a monthly window for small configuration changes such as a new syllabus tag, a changed moderation margin or a revised certificate template. Larger changes are quoted as change requests.

Pricing model

Priced per proposal.

The package is sold as a one-off setup and customisation with optional monthly maintenance and hosting as separate recurring lines, or as a subscription that bundles hosting and maintenance where the organisation prefers one recurring charge. The setup figure depends on the question types and bank size, the add-ons selected, peak concurrency and the load testing it implies, integrations and the hosting choice. Your proposal states each line separately.

Software package

Custom build Concept demo

Variants

Question bank with multiple-choice, multiple-response, short-answer and numeric types
Tags, difficulty, review states and full version history per item
Blueprints with proportions per syllabus area and difficulty, fixed or random assembly
Timed sittings with navigation rules, shuffling and auto-save with resume

Priced per proposal. A written proposal is the only binding figure.

Get a quote for this package Prefer a fully custom build?

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What happens if a candidate loses connection mid-exam?

Every answer is saved as it is given. When the candidate reconnects they resume on the same question with the clock treated according to the grace rule the administrator set for that sitting, and the outage is recorded against the attempt so the administrator can see it.

Can every candidate get a different paper?

Yes. A blueprint can assemble a fixed paper or a random one per candidate within the stated proportions and difficulty mix, and each attempt records the exact item versions and option order served, so a result can always be traced to the paper the candidate actually saw.

How does moderation work?

With the double-marking add-on, each manually marked response goes blind to two markers. Where their marks differ by more than the margin you set, the moderator sees both and records the final mark with a reason. Marker consistency is reported per sitting.

Can we fix a flawed question after a sitting?

Yes. The administrator can void an item for a sitting or accept more than one option as correct, results are recalculated, and the change is recorded with who made it and why. Candidates affected can be identified from the version record.

Does it support practice as well as formal exams?

With the practice add-on, candidates choose topics and attempt items with immediate feedback and the author's explanations. Practice attempts are kept apart from formal results, and you decide whether practice items are drawn from the live bank or a separate pool.

How many candidates can sit at the same time?

Hosting is sized for the peak you state in the proposal, and we load-test at that number before the first live sitting. We do not quote a capacity figure before measuring it on your deployment.

Can it do webcam proctoring or essay marking?

Neither is in the package itself. Connecting a proctoring provider and adding rubric-marked essay items are custom work scoped through the examination platform development service.

Is this a finished product I can see running?

Not yet. The readiness badge on this page shows the real state: the package is currently a custom build assembled from our content, memberships and documents modules with a bespoke sitting engine for each organisation, and the example on this page is a labelled concept demo rather than a live assessment platform.

Get a quote for Question bank platform package

Tell us about your locations, the people who will use it and the add-ons you need. We reply with a clear, competitive proposal.