Ah. Dixie. Such a wonderful school. So thorough and on top of things. Always helpful and everyone on the same page.
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Wait, what? Dixie? Hmmmmm. I must have been dreaming.
*sigh* So, I’m here at the Oregon State University Library to take a proctored exam and, once again, we are having issues. Not the OSU people. The Dixie people. Every semester we have issues of some sort. Whether it’s that the school isn’t sending the tests, sending the wrong tests, sending the wrong password or not including all of the pertinent information, Dixie loves to make my distance proctoring an adventure.
This time (as happened once before……), the class is requiring a lockdown browser in order for me to take the test. Nowhere in the proctor info packet they sent to my proctor did they include that important bit of information. This school has a lockdown browser, just not Dixie’s. And, apparently, Dixie has it set up that their lockdown browser can only be utilized in the DSU testing center.
Um. I’m not at the DSU testing center. I’M IN OREGON!!!! And they know that! It was on my proctor request form! It’s been on ALL my proctor request form for the past two semesters.
Ugh.
Last semester, when we had this issue, we had to download a special browser and then not be able to log into it with Dixie’s credentials because they hadn’t given us the very important tidbit that it couldn’t be logged into offsite. *sigh* So, we had to contact my professor to get her to disable the lockdown browser requirement so I could take my test.
If we’d known this required a lockdown browser, we could have done that, I don’t know, the day they sent the info over? But, no, now I’m sitting here on test day, unable to take my test because they are requiring a lockdown browser and the credentials they are giving us to bypass it aren’t working. It’s now 40 minutes past when I was supposed to start my test. Thankfully, it is only a 50-minute test and I have 3 more hours until the OSU library closes, so I’ve still got time.
Lovely.
So, I just get to sit here and twiddle my thumbs until Dixie gets it sorted out and calls back to let me get into my test. I’m glad the OSU people are so understanding and are so nice. Even with all the issues last semester and this today, they’ve always been super nice to me. I’m really thankful for that. I know it mustn’t be fun for them to have to stop their own work so they can figure all this baloney out so I can take my test. I wish Dixie had more of their ducks in a row.
This is very frustrating. For everyone. At least here, anyways. Because stuff like this keeps happening, I kinda get the feeling Dixie just doesn’t care. Well, the testing center, anyways.
Ooooh! Sounds like my school has called back. I guess I’ll log out of this and get ready to *hopefully* take my test.
–Several hours later–
So, I was able to take my test. After a 40-minute wait, my proctor was able to get the lockdown browser bypass from my teacher and things went smoothly from there. I took my test and got a decent score. Missed 3 out of 25. Not my best performance. One of the answers I put the numbers in the wrong boxes. The numbers were right, just not in the right place. Kicking myself for that one. Oh well. Live and learn.
I’ve got 4 more tests scheduled for the next two months. My proctor suggested that I email my teachers a few days prior to let them know when (and where) I’m taking the tests so they can disable any Dixie-specific requirements. Let’s cross our fingers that this plan goes smoothly.
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