The Head of Department/School is ultimately responsible for the departmental work
associated with the examination process and should therefore ensure that
appropriate members of the Department are nominated to undertake specific tasks.
This page summarises some of the key aspects of examinations, from both the
staff and student perspective.
Confirming Examination Entries
In the Autumn or Spring
term, every student will be asked to check that they are enrolled for
the correct modules, using MyEssex, the student portal. This is an
important exercise as students will be entered for examinations on the
basis of their module enrolment record and it is important to identify
discrepancies before scheduling commences. Students are asked to
notify the Exams Office of any errors by a given deadline and changes
requested after that date will normally be subject to a fine.
Scheduling
The main exam period is
weeks 33-36 inclusive but the
task of producing the exam timetable commences at the start of the
Spring term. Departments are given the opportunity to make requests
for prioritisation in the timetable, however, the increase in both
student numbers and the number of individual exam papers means that
there is less scope to meet such requests comprehensively. The
timetable is also constructed so that students are limited to a
certain number of hours of exams per day and per week. It is
undesirable for students to take two exams per day, though owing to
the wide optionality on some moduless this cannot be guaranteed.
The Exams Office also
takes into account at this stage scheduling constraints for students
who have been assessed by the Student Support Office for individual
examination needs, such as additional time or specific venues.
A draft examination
timetable,
which will have been checked for clashes, is
normally circulated to departments/centres in Week 23
to check for errors. Other amendments are not normally possible.
The final version will be circulated in Week 25 and posted on the
web shortly
afterwards. This contains the date and time of each examination, but
not the room.
In Week 27 students will
be able to access their online timetable via the following link
https://www.essex.ac.uk/examtimes . This
enables students to:
- View and print exam
timetables
- View any individual exam
arrangements that have been put in place for them
- Report any exam errors to the
Exams Office (e.g. not scheduled for the correct
exam)
- View exam FAQ's
- View the student handbook for
exams
- View exam room maps and
seating plans
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Individual Arrangements
New students must
contact the Student Support Office
by Week 5 if they have a learning disability or other condition
which they believe entitles them to an individual exam arrangement,
such as the award of additional writing time or the use of an
amanuensis or computer. The SSO will arrange for assessment and
will confirm what individual arrangements are to be given, if any.
The Exams Office will make the necessary arrangements.
Special arrangements
can only be considered at a later stage if they are required because
of accident or newly diagnosed condition. Individual arrangements are
automatically carried forward to subsequent academic years unless
there is a change in the student’s condition.
Exam Question Papers
The Head of Department
is responsible for the production of examination paper masters and for
ensuring that they are submitted on time to the Exams Office.
The Head of Department should remind teaching staff of their
responsibilities in this area. The
Undergraduate Assessment Policies document, Section 1, specifies
that it is the responsibility of the academic staff and the external
examiners not to set examination questions which invite the
replication of coursework
The late submission of
examination paper masters puts unnecessary pressure on staff in the
Exams Office and in the Print Centre and imposes unnecessary
expenditure in the form of overtime payments. The submission of a
master paper signifies that the Department is assured of the paper's
accuracy, in terms of the rubric, question content, question numbering
and inclusion of any diagrams or case studies that are required.
The papers will be printed exactly as submitted to the Exams Office.
The deadline for
submission of papers is the end of Week 24
for the main exams and Week 44 for resit papers.
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During the Examination Period
Since 2001-02, the
Exams Office has employed temporary staff to cover all invigilation
requirements for centrally administered exams. The Exams Office will
remind departments about the need to ensure relevant staff members are
contactable when their papers are being sat in case of queries on
examination question papers, which arise frequently.
Examination Results
Examination marks for undergraduates are
available online via a
secure web page 48 hours of the Board of Examiners meeting.
Students must log in with their computer account username and current
password. Statements of results are no longer sent by mail to all
students.
Final year students wishing to view their
results after Graduation must register an external email address and a
password with the Computing Service. Advice on how to do this is
displayed when they view their results. Students required to resit or resubmit coursework will be advised of the arrangements for
doing so by letter, to their permanent home address, at the end of
July.
It is University policy
that marks are not given over the telephone, because of the difficulty
of verifying the student’s identity and the risk of misunderstanding.
Disclosing marks to a third party (including parents) without the
student’s specific consent would be in breach of University policy and
the Data Protection Act 1998. Members of staff may give students their
results only via a copy of the signed marks grid.
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