Handbook
Student edition
EthelExam is the platform course staff use to view, score, and finalize AI-scored exams, and students use to view their results and raise objections ("vetoes"). It is part of the Ethel project at ETH Zürich. The reference instance, serving ETH Zürich courses, runs at exam.ethel.ethz.ch.
EthelExam is the visible end of a service that accompanies the whole examination process. The Ethel team supports course teams in designing the exam and its rubrics so they work well with AI scoring, assists with scanning the completed exams, runs the AI scoring of every problem part, and imports and provisions the results in EthelExam — where course staff verify the scores and students view their results and submit vetoes. Manual scoring is needed only where a veto asks for it, and the examiner always retains final grade authority.
This service is developed in the exam-grading-assistance project STIFT+, funded by the Rector's Impulse Fund 2026 (project description, PDF): an initiative to keep open-ended, handwritten STEM exams viable at scale by combining multimodal AI scoring with human oversight. Participating courses receive central support for assessment design, scanning, AI integration, and data handling. Participation is an R&D collaboration between the course team and the Ethel team.
Audience: students (exam participants).
This edition contains the shared chapters and the guide for your role. Read Key concepts and Getting started first.
| Part | For |
|---|---|
| Key concepts | everyone |
| Getting started | everyone |
| Student guide | exam participants |
| Troubleshooting | everyone |
| Glossary | everyone |
EthelExam is run by the Ethel team, the group that operates the platform and provides support. Whenever this handbook says to contact the Ethel team, write to:
Include the exam (course code and term), the problem part if one is affected, what you expected, what you saw instead, and roughly when it happened. The team also appreciates hearing your feedback. Questions about a score itself are a matter for the course, not the Ethel team.
All names, exams, and documents shown in screenshots are synthetic example data.
| Version | Date | Changes |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 (draft) | 21 August 2026 | First edition. 20260822-041925-b6b27b7f |
Provided by the Ethel team, ETH Zürich.
This chapter explains the vocabulary and the scoring model that everything else in EthelExam builds on. It is short. Read it once and the rest of the handbook will make much more sense.
An exam in EthelExam is one course's examination in one term, for example Physics I, PHYS-101, FS 2026. Inside an exam:
For each problem part a student answered, EthelExam stores the scanned document with that answer (a PDF). It is shown right next to the scores, so the score can always be checked against the actual work. Parts without an answer are marked absent.
Every problem part has a rubric: a list of criteria, each worth a number of points. A score in EthelExam is not a single number. It is one value per rubric criterion, and the total follows from them.
Scores come from two sources:
During normal scoring in EthelExam, score changes are never destructive: every scoring action is recorded, and course admins can inspect the full score history of any problem part.
A veto is an objection against the current score of one problem part: "please look at this again". Vetoes drive the whole scoring workflow.
Two time windows, set by the course admin, control what students can do:
There is no separate "publish results" step. As soon as the viewing period is active, students see the current scores of their problem parts, except parts with an open veto, whose scores stay hidden until they are scored again.
Access is per exam. Within your exam:
EthelExam uses Switch edu-ID, the same account you use for other Swiss university services. There is no separate EthelExam password.
Open the EthelExam address for your institution — at ETH Zürich this is exam.ethel.ethz.ch — and select edu-ID Sign-in. You are taken to the Switch edu-ID login and, after signing in, back to EthelExam.
The first time you sign in, EthelExam shows you exactly which information it received from your Switch edu-ID account: your name, email address, and your university affiliations. Review the list and select Agree and continue. This appears only once; afterwards you go straight to your exams.
After signing in you land on Exams: every exam you have a role in, one card per exam. The card shows the exam's viewing and veto periods, and the actions your role allows. A student sees a View button; a TA also sees Vetoes; a course admin sees View, Vetoes, Exam overview, and Exam settings.
If an exam you expect is missing, the most common cause is that your university affiliation is not linked to your edu-ID account. The Missing an exam? panel at the bottom of the page explains how to check and fix this. If the exam is still missing afterwards, contact the Ethel team (see Getting help).
The header is the same on every page: breadcrumbs on the left show where you are (exam name, current page), followed by the navigation buttons your role allows. Where a button carries a badge, the number is the count of open vetoes.
Page addresses are stable: a bookmark or a shared link lands on the same page again, provided the person opening it has a role that allows it.
As a student you can view your scored exam during the viewing period and check every score against your answer sheets. During the veto period you can also ask for individual problem parts to be scored again.
After signing in you see your exams. Each card shows the viewing period (when you can look at your exam) and the veto period (when you can object to scores). The View button opens your exam; if you have vetoes still open, a badge on the button shows how many.
If an exam you took is missing here, see Missing an exam? at the bottom of the page; usually your university affiliation needs to be linked in your edu-ID account.
Your exam is shown problem by problem: for each problem part, the scoring rubric with your points on the left, and the scan of your answer on the right, so you can check every point against what you actually wrote. The viewer zooms, and you can open any document in its own tab.
Before the viewing period starts (or after it ends) the page shows a notice instead of your exam:
If you believe a problem part was scored wrongly, you can veto it. This asks course staff to score that part again from scratch.
Press Veto on the problem part. A confirmation dialog spells out the rules before you commit:
Read the dialog carefully; the veto is deliberately final:
As soon as your veto is submitted, the part shows an open-veto notice and its rubric and scores disappear from your view. That is intentional: the previous score is void, a fresh scoring is underway, and its outcome is what counts.
When course staff have scored the part again, the veto closes automatically and the part shows its new score. The part is then final: it can no longer be vetoed.
A veto submitted before the period closes is still processed after it. If the viewing period is still active, you will see the new score as soon as staff have entered it. Outside the viewing period the exam is no longer visible in EthelExam; contact your course if you need the result. When a part is final, EthelExam has no further objection path.
After an hour of inactivity (or 8 hours after signing in, whichever comes first) EthelExam ends your session and shows "Your session has expired" on the sign-in page:
Sign in again and you will be returned to the page you were on. Unsaved edits do not survive the expiry; save as you go.
Your exam list shows exams in which your signed-in identity has a role. The usual cause for a missing exam is an unlinked university affiliation in your Switch edu-ID account: open Missing an exam? at the bottom of the exams page, follow the guide, then sign out and back in. Still missing? Contact the Ethel team (see Getting help).
If a scanned answer shows "Document temporarily unavailable", use Retry; this is almost always transient. Open in new tab is a second path to the same document. If a document is persistently unavailable, report the exam, problem part, and time to the Ethel team.
For anything data-related — wrong or missing students, wrong documents, re-imports — contact the Ethel team (see Getting help). For access problems, start with An exam is missing from my list above. Questions about a score itself are a matter for the course.
AI scored — The initial state of every problem part: scores from the Ethel team's AI scoring, imported into EthelExam, before any human has intervened.
Blind scoring — What a TA does on a part with an open veto: the disputed score is hidden and the rubric starts at zero, so the fresh scoring is not anchored by the old number.
Course admin — The faculty role that runs an exam: sets periods, sees identities and score history, creates vetoes, and corrects scores.
Document — The scanned PDF of one student's answer to one problem part, shown next to the rubric.
Ethel team — The group that operates EthelExam, provides support, and appreciates hearing your feedback. Contact: ethel@sl.ethz.ch (see Getting help).
Exam — One course's examination in one term, for example Physics I, PHYS-101, FS 2026.
Exam instance — One student's personal copy of an exam, with one row per problem part.
Legi — The Swiss matriculation number identifying a student.
Manually scored — The state of a problem part after a member of course staff has entered scores by hand. A manually scored part can never be vetoed again.
Problem — A top-level exercise of an exam ("Problem 1 — Rolling sphere").
Problem part — One sub-question of a problem ("1.a — Speed at the bottom of the incline"), and the unit that documents, scores, vetoes, and notes attach to.
Rubric — The list of criteria, each worth points, against which a problem part is scored.
Scoring note — A private staff notepad on one problem part of one student. Versioned; never visible to students.
Student label — The pseudonymous five-character identifier (such as "0BASP") that identifies a student to a TA within one problem part, shown in veto scoring only. It does not reveal the student's identity to TAs; identifiers differ from part to part by design.
TA — The teaching-assistant role: scores vetoed parts blind and never sees student identities.
Veto — A final, one-time objection against the current score of one problem part. Open until staff enter a manual score, which closes it.
Veto period — The window during which students can submit vetoes. Always lies inside the viewing period.
Viewing period — The window during which students can open their exam and see documents and scores.