Overview
Custom Exam Assignment lets instructors assign an exam to specific students or groups of students, rather than the entire class, and set different availability windows for each group.
In this article, you will learn:
How to enable Custom Exam Assignment
How to manage exam assignments
What the exam and scheduling window options are for
Enabling Custom Exam Assignment
Enabling Custom Exam Assignment is only needed if you are creating the exam from scratch, or editing a manually created exam. Exams imported from Canvas will keep any student or group assignments from the LMS.
During exam creation, or by editing an existing exam, open the exam settings.
Toggle Custom Exam Assignment to On.
Toggling Custom Exam Assignment on unlocks the ability to select and manage student assignments in the Student Details section.
Managing Exam Assignments
Navigate to the exam and click View Exam.
In the Student Overview section, click Manage Assignments.
In the Manage Assignments window, you can:
View any groups already assigned to the exam.
Edit or Remove any current groups.
Create a new group by clicking Add Group.
Add students to a group individually, or add an entire section if sections were identified during exam creation (for example, through a Canvas import).
Set a specific exam window or scheduling window for that group, overriding the exam's global dates.
Click Save once finished. SCREENSHOT
To exit the Manage Assignments window, click the X in the upper right corner.
Understanding Exam and Scheduling Windows
Every exam has a global exam window (open/close dates) set in the main exam settings. Students who aren't assigned to the exam via Custom Exam Assignment simply follow this global window, or don't see the exam at all if it's restricted.
When a student is assigned to a group, that group can either:
Use the exam's global availability dates (no override), or
Have its own override dates set within Manage Assignments.
Important: overrides are inclusionary, not exclusionary. If a group's override window falls partially outside the exam's global window, the student gets the broader of the two. Any global availability that extends beyond the group's override is still granted to that student. This mirrors how Canvas/Instructure handles availability overrides.
For example, an exam's global window is the 14th through the 24th:
A group with no override follows the global window: 14th–24th.
A group with an override of the 17th–29th ends up with an effective window of 14th–29th, since the student still receives any global availability outside their own override.
The scheduling window works the same way but controls when a student can schedule the exam, separate from when they can actually take it.