Experiences of using a public key infrastructure for the preparation of examination papers

A project that piloted the secure electronic preparation of examination papers ran during the first semester of the academic year 1998-99 at the University of Salford. The examination papers were transferred between the participants (lecturers, administrators and external examiners) using secure electronic mail. Security was provided by a managed public key infrastructure. Users were profiled and interviewed in order to determine the likely success of further roll out within the institution, as well as the user friendliness of the existing paper based and proposed electronic systems. The project found that, while the technology worked for some participants, others had severe problems with installation of the software and failed to grasp key concepts. There appear to be formidable obstacles to extending the system to cover the whole university, including compatibility of equipment and the reliability of the network infrastructure.