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UWS Exams Policy Con’t…

October 14th, 2009 | By David Holmes (GenSec)

I’ve had second thoughts about what I’ve proposed, that it may be too complex. So here is my new amendment to paragraph 22 of the proposed revised Examinations Policy:

The normal duration of a Final Examination or Deferred Examination will be two hours, although professional accreditation requirements for a course might warrant three hours.

No Final Examination or Deferred Examination should exceed three hours. If a two-hour Final Examination is proposed for a Unit of Study, that Unit of Study should at least have a one-hour Intra-session Examination if academically necessary.

A three-hour Final Examination or Deferred Examination should weigh 50% of the Final Grade, and a two-hour Final Examination or Deferred Examination should weigh 40% of the Final Grade, although professional accreditation requirements for a course might warrant otherwise.

Best Regards,

Loui Pham J.P.

General Secretary

The Hive Student Union, University of Western Sydney

phloui@gmail.com

0402 370 386

Posted in Exams Policy, UWS
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The UWS Exams Policy is changing

October 6th, 2009 | By David Holmes (GenSec)

Hi everyone,

I’m the General Secretary of The Hive Student Union, but I’m also the Undergraduate Member of the Education Committee of the Academic Senate.

The Education Committee is the University committee in charge of changing the Examinations Policy. The Committee will meet next month to finalise and sanction the new Examinations Policy governing how exams will be conducted for UWS students as of next year.

After extensive consultations with students and staff, I have proposed the following amendments to the current Examinations Policy for the Committee to consider:

(22) The normal duration of a Final Examination or Deferred Examination will be two hours, although professional accreditation requirements for a course might warrant three hours. No Final Examination or Deferred Examination should exceed three hours. A three-hour Final Examination or Deferred Examination should weigh 50% of the Final Grade, but must be designed to be completed within three hours. A two-hour Final Examination or Deferred Examination should weigh 40% of the Final Grade, but must be designed to be completed within two hours. If a two-hour Final Examination is proposed for a Unit of Study, that Unit of Study should at least have a one-hour Intra-session Examination designed to be completed within one hour if it is necessary to maintaining the academic standards of that Unit of Study.

Definition of “examination clash“: (34)e. where a student has more than three two examinations scheduled on two consecutive days. The University does not regard Friday or Saturday and the following Monday as consecutive days.

Academics writing exams should be able to conduct 3-hour final exams if it is academically rigorous to do so. Some 3-hour exams at UWS weigh 60% of the Final Grade, which a lot of students feel is too much. It logically follows that 2-hour exams should weigh 40%. Subjects with 2-hour final exams should also have 1-hour mid-semester exams if it is academically rigorous to have such a provision.

A lot of students have also complained about occasionally coming across a set of 4 subjects in a semester where 3 of those subjects’ final exams have been set to be completed within 2 consecutive days. They would rather the worst case scenario of dealing with an exam each day for 4 days straight.