Welcome to ORCA!

ORCA (Open Resource Centre For Assessments). In the background of the image: multiple side-by-side workstations with partitions in between them. The two in-focus workstations are labelled '02' and '01'. The '01' workstation has a computer monitor on display that shows the ORCA logo, a heading that reads 'Welcome!', and two text boxes labelled 'Login' and 'Password' (respectively).

More information coming soon!

The Open Resource Centre for Assessments (ORCA) aims to solve a key problem in teaching and learning: helping instructors run digital assessments at scale securely and equitably.


The easiest way to describe the ORCA is to imagine it as a network-filtered computer lab dedicated to running digital assessments in 50-minute increments throughout the day, invigilated by a trained proctor.


The ORCA is a service provided by the Department of Computer Science at UBC and at any given time, students in a ORCA room can be writing assessments from a number of courses.

Below is a picture of one of the ORCA rooms taken by one of our seasoned proctors, Rose Loftus.

Birds-eye view photo of the ORCA room.

Navigate our website to find out more about the ORCA, and why we need an ORCA!

Request to use the ORCA

For returning courses, instructors and course coordinators can request to use the ORCA here:

Submit your course to ORCA

NEW! We are soliciting courses that would benefit from using the ORCA as pilots in the fall or spring semesters. Get in touch with us by email orca.support@ubc.ca!

Locations of the ORCA

There are currently four rooms on campus that are part of the ORCA (in two different buildings).
More information about the location of the rooms can be found here.

Acknowledgements

The ORCA was made possible by a few pioneers and early adopters who championed the initiative and made the facility what it is today.


Special thanks to Dr. Cinda Heeren, … Jonatan Schroeder, Anthony Winstanley, Tim Li, Stephan Koenig, as well as some key student partners including Rose Loftus, Mara Solen, and Nichole Boufford.

Funding

Initial funding for the ORCA was provided by the Computer Science department within the Faculty of Science.
Expansion of the ORCA was made possible through funding from the Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund.