General Examination Procedures
Scheduling Examinations Outside of Class Time
Make-up Examinations
Test Modifications for Students with Disabilities
Construction Noise during Examinations

see also Final Examination Policies and Procedures (another page on this website)

General Examination Procedures

The following recommendations are intended to provide equivalence in the conduct of examinations and to minimize opportunities for dishonesty. These recommendations are not meant to be exhaustive or mandatory, but to set forth basic principles with which each instructor should be familiar.

• Examinations should be effectively proctored; the room should never be left unattended. Whenever feasible, there should be two proctors for an examination of 25 to 50 students, and an additional proctor for each additional 50 students.
• When space permits, students should be asked to sit in alternate seats.
• At the beginning of all except announced "open-book" examinations, the instructor should require that all books, notebooks, extra examination booklets, and papers of any kind be left in the front of the room.
• The instructor should announce at the beginning of the examination that students are expected to remain in the room until they are ready to turn in their examinations. Permission to leave the room while the examination is in progress may be granted by the instructor for good cause. Only one student may be absent from the examination room at a time.
• In objective examinations it is recommended that two sets of questions, or the same questions in different order, be distributed alternately to students.

When a student is discovered cheating during an examination, the proctor should take up the student's examination materials immediately, informing the student that College policy requires that the matter be reported to the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Curriculum (see "Academic Dishonesty").

Scheduling Examinations Outside of Class Time

Instructors must be particularly careful about scheduling evening examinations, which may cause scheduling conflict for many students. The Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education worked with representatives from all the undergraduate colleges to develop the following policies:

University Policy on Course Exam Schedule Conflicts:

1. When instructors plan to give exams outside of class time, they should announce the dates and times at the first class meeting and list them on the course syllabus for distribution at the first class meeting.

2. When there is conflict between an exam scheduled outside of class time and a regularly scheduled course, the regularly scheduled course will take precedence.

3. During fall semester, when there is a conflict between two exams scheduled outside the regular class times, the course having the lower department number (or letter), or lower course number when the conflict is within the department will take precedence. During spring semester and summer session, when there is a conflict between two exams scheduled outside the regular class times, the course having the higher number (or letter), or higher course number when the conflict is within the department, will take precedence.

4. When there is a conflict between an exam scheduled outside of class time and other scheduled and required course activities (e.g. performances, meetings, lectures), the required course activity will take precedence.

5. When there is a conflict between an exam scheduled outside of class time and other scheduled, non-required course activities or personal obligations, the exam will take precedence. However, exams not scheduled and announced in class at least 14 days in advance will not have priority under this policy.

6. Instructors must offer reasonable options without penalty to students who miss exams due to conflicts described above.

Note: The College will not authorize the scheduling of examinations on Saturdays or Sundays (except in courses that are regularly scheduled to meet on Saturdays or Sundays).

Make-up Examinations

University policy requires that students be permitted to make up examinations missed because of illness, mandatory religious obligations, or other unavoidable circumstances or University activities (Operations Manual, IV-2.1). Therefore, instructors must offer reasonable options without penalty to students who have missed examinations for legitimate reasons.

It is the student's responsibility to contact the instructor as soon as possible about the reasons for a missed exam and, if the instructor so wishes, to provide appropriate documentation.

Makeup examinations should be scheduled at a reasonable time and location. The makeup examination, if different, should be equivalent to the original in form, content, difficulty, and time limits, and the standards for scoring and grading should be equivalent to those used for the original examination.

Test Modifications for Students with Disabilities

The Office of Student Disability Services (3101 Burge Hall, 335-1462), can help instructors arrange appropriate modifications for students with disabilities while protecting academic standards. Staff members are specifically trained and have access to the confidential information needed to make determinations of the appropriateness of testing modifications; they have experience in determining specific classroom modifications and can suggest approaches that have proved to be fair and equitable. For more information, see "Exam Accommodation Guidelines for Instructors" (pdf).

See "Students with Disabilities" for other information about students with disabilities.

Construction Noise during Examinations

The policy of the University's Operations and Maintenance office is to stop construction immediately when the work disturbs an examination in progress. The instructor in charge of an examination should promptly report such problems to Operations and Maintenance (335-5071) or to the construction workers, asking them to contact their supervisor.

See "Classroom Disruptions" for information on other disruptions.