Next Exams is a complete assessment suite for Joomla. Build a reusable question bank across a hierarchical subject tree, assemble exams from fixed questions or randomised pools, and publish them behind the access rule that fits — public, registered users, a shared code, a named cohort, or a launch from your LMS.

Examinees sit the exam in a runner where the clock, the question set and the score all live on the server, so a tampered browser changes nothing. It autosaves as they work, survives a closed laptop, and still submits with JavaScript switched off. Eight of the nine question types grade themselves with partial credit; essays go to a human marker. Then results break down per subject, certificates issue automatically with public QR verification, item analysis tells you which questions are measuring nothing, and LTI 1.3, signed webhooks and a token-authenticated API push everything onward.

🎯 Use cases

• 🎓 Online courses and training — assess learners on your own site instead of sending them to an external platform that owns your questions and their data.
• 🏅 Certification programmes — issue numbered PDF certificates with expiry and a public verification page anyone can check.
• 🏫 Schools and tutoring — subject-organised question banks, per-subject result breakdowns and revision hints that tell a learner what to work on.
• 🧑‍💼 Recruitment screening — timed, code-gated assessments for candidates who have no account on your site.
• 🔗 LMS assessment engine — plug into Moodle, Canvas or any LTI 1.3 platform and pass scores straight back to the gradebook.
• 📋 Compliance and refreshers — cohort-restricted exams with attempt caps, cooldowns, expiring certificates and reminder emails.

💡 Benefits

• 🔒 The server decides, not the browser — timing, the question set and the score are all server-side, so client-side tampering achieves nothing.
• 🧠 A question bank worth maintaining — write a question once, reuse it across exams, and find out from item analysis whether it actually works.
• ♿ Accessible by design — the whole exam-taking flow was remediated to WCAG 2.1 AA, and the runner still submits without JavaScript.
• 🧩 Only the product you need — twenty-six capabilities you can switch off individually, hiding the interface and closing the endpoints without deleting any data.
• 🏠 Your data stays yours — no external assessment service, no third-party account, nothing leaves your server.
• 🔌 Built to connect — LTI 1.3, signed webhooks and a default-deny bearer-token API, in the box rather than as paid add-ons.

🧩 Features

🗂️ Question Bank

• Nine question types — multiple choice single and multiple, true/false, short answer, essay, ordering, matching, extended matching and cloze
• Hierarchical subject tree with automatic path maintenance
• Free-form tags, and custom fields of your own that stay searchable
• LaTeX maths typeset with KaTeX, and a curated image library with required alt text
• Question version history and an approval workflow

🧱 Exam Builder

• Pin fixed questions, draw the rest at random from a subject or tag pool, or combine both
• Named sections, independent question and option shuffling, per-question points
• Time limits, attempt caps, cooldowns and opening windows
• Four taking modes — exam or practice, single page or one per page, pause and resume
• Abandoned attempts close themselves, per exam — mark what was saved, or void it and give the attempt back
• Per-exam pass and fail messages

⏱️ Exam Runner

• Server-authoritative timing with automatic submission
• Delta autosave that re-sends anything the server did not confirm
• Pause and resume with a frozen clock and configurable caps
• Practice mode with optional per-question feedback
• Mark-for-review flagging that survives a reload
• Works without JavaScript — the runner is a real HTML form

✅ Grading and Results

• Automatic grading for eight of the nine types, with proportional or all-or-nothing partial credit
• Numeric tolerance and regular-expression matching for short answers
• Manual essay marking with locked review while marking is outstanding
• Result release: immediate, after close, scheduled or manual — with answers a separate switch
• Per-subject breakdown, weakest first, with revision hints

🏅 Certificates

• Visual drag-and-drop certificate designer
• Automatic issue on a pass, with sequential numbering
• Validity periods, expiry reminders and revocation
• Frozen snapshots, so editing a template never rewrites certificates already issued
• Public QR verification keyed by a random token, not a guessable serial

👁️ Live Monitoring

• A real-time board of everyone currently sitting an exam
• Progress, time remaining and who has gone quiet
• Extend time, allow a resume, pause, force submit or leave a note — all audited
• Invite invigilators by link or PIN with no Joomla account, scoped to one exam

📊 Analytics and Reports

• Exam overview statistics and score distributions
• Item analysis with difficulty and item-total discrimination
• Per-student reports and trends
• Attempt and analytics CSV export
• Scheduled reports emailed automatically

🔌 Integrations

• Full LTI 1.3 tool provider — launch, Deep Linking and gradebook passback
• HMAC-signed outbound webhooks with retry and a delivery log
• Default-deny bearer-token JSON API
• Article macro, Smart Search indexing, GDPR export and erasure
• Five site modules — My Exams, My Results, Exam Search, Leaderboard, My Certificates

🛡️ Security

• 🔐 Its own permission system — custom roles granting actions per feature to Joomla users or groups, with reads gated as strictly as writes.
• 🚫 Default deny — every endpoint must declare the permission it requires; a controller that omits it fails to load rather than defaulting to open.
• 🛰️ SSRF protection — webhooks refuse private, loopback and reserved addresses, checked at send time as well as save time, and never follow redirects.
• 🖼️ Safe uploads — raster images only, validated by actual image data, with SVG excluded because it can carry script.
• ⏳ Rate-limited invigilator PINs, and invigilator grants that can never end anyone's exam.
• 🕵️ Detection-only integrity signals — focus, paste and tab-switch counters are recorded and shown, never used to fail anyone automatically. No webcam proctoring, ever.