Installing a secure network for undergraduates to access resources and the Internet at the National University of Singapore (NUS) not only saved printing and invigilation costs but resulted in a crucial side benefit.

The new network also allowed the NUS to roll out a new online exam system for undergrads.

One challenge for e-tests is that it must prevent students from checking the Internet and their notes in their computers for answers.

Mr Roland Yeo, network manager of NUS' Computer Centre explained that the new network could so completely "encapsulate" a student's notebook computer that he could not look at the hard drive or open up Internet Explorer.

"Such is its ability to exert total control over the network environment that you can even limit the student to just a blank screen," he added.

To date, more than 200 students from the medical faculty and 60 from the School of Computing have taken their e-tests.

Associate Professor Erle Chuen-Hian Lim at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine said that "students feel that computer-based testing is fairer".

"Instead of being projected on a wall, the high resolution images and photographs - which had to be printed prior to this - were delivered directly to the student's desktop display and seeing them this way made them clearer and sharper," he said.

Come August, the law students at NUS' Bukit Timah campus will start using the e-test.

The e-test system is part of a VPN (virtual private network) which allowed undergrads and staff to access resources and applications as well as the Internet from anywhere and at any time.

It cost $200,000 and was implemented by Juniper Networks earlier this year.

The NUS' previous network for students and staff, called the Interactive Virtual Learning Environment (IVLE), came out in 1999. And over the years, the Centre for instructional Technology (CIT) had amassed huge amounts of learning material and academic services on the IVLE.

The CIT's centre manager Mr Soh Hock Heng said: "There was already a huge investment in our own IVLE which was thoroughly customised for our faculty and staff members."

"Classroom administration and courseware distribution were all handled by IVLE."

With this system in hand, Mr Soh found that he could not justify a new e-test system.

So he deployed a hybrid system.

There was an online test but administered in an old-fashioned way with invigilators patrolling the exam centre to make sure students did not check their notes in their computers or on the Internet.

The idea for the VPN was first considered in 1995.

Then Mr Yeo discovered that the VPN could also be used to administer e-tests.

Other key benefits of the VPN is the central updating of software drivers and utilities from a web-based location.

No student or staff need to manually copy software drivers from the Computer Centre to a CD and getting an IT support person to install them.

The savings from this single activity alone are huge considering that the NUS alone has more than 30,000 students and 6,000 staff using the computer network.

So will the VPN allow students to take e-tests at home?

Mr Soh said: "If taken at home, we can't make sure it's the student himself who's taking the test. The technology is not quite there yet to allow us to do this."