Paper setting workflow

Paper setting runs in the weeks between the schedule being fixed and the first exam day, and it is deliberately the slowest part of the exam cycle. A paper moves through four states - draft, submitted for review, changes requested, and published - and each transition is snapshotted as a version and written to the exam audit log. Work backwards from the exam date: set the submission deadline when you assign the makers, and leave room for at least one round of requested changes.

Confidentiality is enforced by status. While a paper is unpublished only the assigned makers and exam coordinators can open its detail or builder. Once published, any staff account can see it. Setters can edit content only while the paper is in draft or changes-requested; coordinators can edit until it is published, and nobody can edit a published or cancelled paper.

Prerequisites

• An exam session with papers scheduled per class and subject, since setters are assigned against a paper.
• Question banks at /exam-papers/question-banks for reusable items - either interactive banks where questions are authored in-app, or document banks holding uploaded question paper files.
• A curriculum syllabus for the class-subject if you intend to build a blueprint, because the blueprint snapshots curriculum topics.
• Two eligible paper makers: active staff or admin accounts.

Setup workflow

1. Create question banks per subject, optionally scoped to a class, at /exam-papers/question-banks.
2. On the paper detail page, a coordinator assigns a primary and a secondary paper maker and sets a submission deadline; both are notified.
3. Makers can only be changed while the paper is in draft or changes-requested status.
4. Optionally build the paper blueprint, which snapshots the chosen curriculum topics with total marks, pass marks and duration, then lock it.

Usage workflow

1. A maker opens /exam-papers/my-setter-tasks and follows the paper into the builder.
2. Compose the paper at /exam-papers/[id]/builder in one of three modes: native rich-text authoring, assembly from question banks, or an uploaded file such as a PDF or DOCX.
3. Attach the answer key or marking scheme; this is required for theory and practical components and for papers with no component type set.
4. Submit for committee review. The submission is refused unless both makers are assigned, any existing blueprint is locked, and the answer key is present.
5. The committee reviews. Requesting changes stores moderation notes, flips the paper back to changes-requested and notifies the makers; changes can only be requested while the paper is under review.
6. The chair publishes. Publishing creates or reuses a linked assessment and seeds an empty mark row for every active student in the class, which is what marking is entered against.

Status transitions

What breaks if you skip a step

• Only one maker assigned: submission for review is refused and asks for both a primary and a secondary.
• Blueprint started but not locked: submission is refused until the committee locks it; a paper with no blueprint at all is allowed through.
• No answer key on a theory or practical paper: submission is refused, because there is nothing for markers to work from.
• Session archive-frozen: submission and publishing are both refused with a locked response, and nothing about the session can change.
• Paper published before marks exist: the seeded assessment counts as missing marks on the class report card until marking is done.

Handoff and limits

Paper setting takes from curriculum, since a blueprint snapshots syllabus topics and keeps a reference to the source so later curriculum edits cannot rewrite a locked blueprint. It hands off to marking, which works against the assessment created at publish, and from there into report cards. The assessment is created with type FINAL, published status, full weighting and the paper’s scheduled start date, so it appears on the term card covering that date.

• There is no automatic difficulty balancing or blueprint validation against the question set - the committee reviews by eye.
• A published paper cannot be edited; withdraw and reissue rather than trying to patch it.
• Multiple paper sets exist for a paper, but most papers use a single default set.