How to implement online exam in .NET? Suggestions

[mbhavani]

I am developing a ASP.NET web application for conducting online exam.

The exam contains some 60-150 questions.Currently, I'am storing all the answers in session and updating in the database at the end.I'am using SQL Server database.

But I'am facing problems with this approach.If more than some number of users are writng the exam at the sametime from client machines, and if any problem comes in the middle, all the answers in the session are lost and the student has to take the exam from the begining again.

Can any body suggest different approaches for storing results along with performance issues?

Can I store them in a temporary table, or an xml file of a text file, or go to server round-trip for each answer?

Please give your valuable suggestions.
Thank you.

 

[Craftor]

Hi mbhavani

Would it be an option for you to use XML Serialization to serialize the current user's state to an XML file?

Hope this helps

Craftor

 

[jzelhart]

I personally would have a table that had the users exam key, the question number, and the answer. Then insert or update the answer each time. This would allow for the various number of questions per exam.

Table: User (UserID Key)
Table: Exams (ExamID Key)
Table: Exam Questions (ExamID and QuestionID Key)
Table: User Exams (Only needed if they can take the exam more than once.) (UserExamID Key)
Table: User Exam Answers (UserExamID and QuestionID Key OR UserID, ExamID, and QuestionID Key)

Hope this makes sense.

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Thanks - Jennifer