Amount of time the student took to take the assessment or complete an activity.
Caution
Sometimes the time shown on the Graded Attempts page does not match the time spent on the Assessment Overview.
The times may be different because time is tracked by two separate systems.
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Graded Attempts: Time is tracked for the overall session based on actions the student takes to Start, Exit, and Submit the activity.
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Assessment Overview: Time is tracked as a student is actively interacting with the assessment (loading questions, answering, submitting).
Because these systems track time differently and don’t continuously reconcile with each other, short or unusually small times (such as 16 seconds) can appear when:
- A student’s interaction doesn’t consistently trigger a session heartbeat.
- The student exits or resumes in a way the LMS doesn’t capture cleanly.
- There is a network, device, or browser interruption.
When that happens, you can see what looks like a major discrepancy—such as seconds in one place and several minutes in another—even though the student may have spent a reasonable amount of time working.
Which time is more accurate?
If one report shows a very short time and the other shows a longer duration, this typically indicates that the Graded Attempts report under-recorded the activity while the Assessment Overview continued tracking actual work.
When times differ, the Assessment Overview is the most reliable indicator of how long a student was actively working in the assessment because it is based on direct interaction with the test questions.
If the times are different, does this mean that the student is cheating?
Not necessarily.
A very short time difference is not definitive evidence that a script or tool was used. The most reliable way to identify potential misuse is to review patterns over time, such as:
- Repeated extremely short attempts across multiple assessments.
- Consistently high scores paired with unusually low time spent.
- Other indicators, like Speed Radar or broader activity patterns.
A single discrepancy, especially when another report shows a longer, more typical duration, should be treated as a signal to review, not as a conclusion. To ensure students are treated fairly, we recommend using discrepancies as a starting point for further review and focusing on patterns across multiple assessments rather than a single data point.