Who are Universities accountable to?

[Hattiedoodah]

An administrative issue has arisen with dd’s University - she has two exams scheduled which overlap (final year) so that she will effectively get half the time of the other students to complete the exams. She’s tried to resolve it with the student education service team and her faculty but has hit a blank wall as they said the exam timetable is set and cannot be amended. Who is the next person up the chain? I know with secondary school, ultimately if the staff won’t address a problem then you can go to the governors. With University - who is actually accountable for the fair running of the University? This seems so blatantly unfair I can’t believe the University is refusing to address it. Thanks.

I would approach the Chancellor of the University and suggest a solution - such as sitting both exams back to back with someone escorting her from one to the other so she cannot concur with peers.

Surely it will be the same as any exam clash? My daughter had 2 GCSEs clash. She took one and then remained in the exam hall. Was accompanied by an invigilator for a 30 minute break and then took the other one.

The university complaints department. They will escalate it and send it to the right people.

Chancellor is a strange suggestion.
Her student union can advise on procedures, there will be many avenues.

The Registrar and the Student Union, but follow the complaints system first. As said by others she should be able to do them supervised back to back, not ideal, but I had two finals papers in a day and survived. Just...

Head of exams, director of registry services. Academic registrar. Any of those. Student union will be able to advise further.

FYI - Chancellor is a ceremonial role - often an HRH or similar! Vice chancellor (Principal, Warden or similar often for collegiate unis) is head of institution. They report to Governors. However Governors wouldn't be involved in complaints. Once internal complaints procedure exhausted then the Office for Independent Adjudicator for HE is next port of call.

Her student union should have an advice team who can help navigate the layers of admin and escalation.

From your wording, I get the impression these might be take home exams? So not just a case of being supervised in a room in between?

If they're do at home, e.g. online, then there's usually a window to do them in, but a fixed time from when you start, if you see what I mean, so she should be able to do both. So it's open from 10 Thurs to 10 Fri, but when you log on, you have two hours to submit. But all institutions will be different. I did think this was dodgy re collusion, but then that can get picked up by markers and plagiarism software.

Does she have a personal tutor? If one of my tutees came to me with this issue I would absolutely pursue it with the exams office for them

OP,

This is so strange that I think it is worth checking whether there could be a misunderstanding? Not saying there necessarily is.

However if the system is as @murasaki describes, or even if it is simply intended that students limit the time spent on each exam so that your DD has enough time for both, she wouldn’t have a valid complaint at my university. She would simply have the bad luck of two exams in one day. Not ideal, but not unusual.

Having said that, if one of my tutees or someone in my course experienced a genuine conflict I too would be pursuing it for them.

PS I cannot believe any UK university would refuse a student equal time for an in- person exam (as opposed to take home exams where I may not be aware of all the variants). That’s a disaster in the making, for the university.

It seems highly unlikely that anyone is refusing to try and resolve this for her. Personal tutor/student advisor/head of department/undergraduate tutor...or she can look online at who the faculty leads are. They will have a vested interest in resolving this for her.

There are also ones where it is effectively an essay/assignment set with a 24 or 48 hour deadline. So you can work as much or as little as you like in that time, though usually with a recommendation that you should spend no more than X hours on it. Horrible things, but students seem convinced that they’re better and less stressful (I really don’t think they are).

I’m imagining two of these, say both 48 hour, but with a day overlap. I wonder then, because there is a recommendation to only spend X hours on it, that the argument is she still has enough time to do both. Also harder to delay one as the information would be out and she would have access to it (via others, even if she didn’t log in).

However I am now just wildly speculating.

I was also wondering about this variant, @FilippityFiloppity . My School wouldn’t give an exam with such vague guidance and I don’t like it.

I think that at my university because of the guidance in this scenario students would be expected to budget their time appropriately.
Although it may sound paradoxical, I don’t believe a well prepared student is likely to benefit from putting extra time in to the exams. Too often the time is spent procrastinating, fretting, second guessing oneself, etc. Just follow the guidance and be done with it.

She should throw everything at it. She might even find that applying for extra time through extension/special circs works, giving her double the time.

She needs to be Cc-ing in people when she emails as well, rather than all separate from one another. So course directors from both courses together as a start point.

I am on the student’s side in case of a genuine confluct, @MyEyesMyThighs , and I don’t see any reason to suppose that this comes under the heading of Special Circs. We really need clarification about the nature of the conflict in order to advise.

Your idea of keeping everyone updated together is good.

It is a 48 hours exam so not done in the hall. Sorry would help if I’d specified that! DD has ASD and ADHD so actually having the full allotment of time is important because she likes to be very thorough with research etc but this can take time. Also, why should she be denied the same amount of time as everyone else because of a timetabling up mess up by the university! There are only a handful of students doing exactly the same combination of modules as dd so it’s only a handful of students who will be disadvantaged. If they truly believe that you don’t need 48 hours for the exam then surely 24hours should be given to everyone?

So far she emailed the student union who couldn’t really help and cc’d in disability services and her faculty who haven’t replied.

The ASD and ADHD are significant, OP.

Is DD registered with Disability Services already?

What kind of special consideration is she ordinarily entitled to?

The disabilities are the potential leverage here. However it is very important to know: what, if any, guidance on timings has been issued for the exams? Even if it is not as strong as an instruction.

Hi OP,

I work for a uni and set exams. We have 24 hour exams, however students are only supposed to spend 3 hours on them. The papers are the same as the old in person papers, the longer window is given purely in case of technical issues, or if students are in another time zone. I imagine the same is true of the 48 hour one, the other uni is just a bit more generous. We also have a very sort (24 hour) late submission period. Has she asked about that?

https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/for-students/ofs-and-students/complaints/complaints-about-a-university-or-college/

Ultimately they're responsible to the office for students. Or so a prof told me.

No. (Well they're our regulator, assuming England), but this isn't the sort of thing they regulate - that's for the OIAHE should the internal process be exhausted.

Although now OP has said they're 48 hour exams I can see the uni view. The mistake OP's dd has made is in assuming that 48 hours should therefore be spent doing the exam. Which is of course not the idea at all - students should NEVER think that. The exam itself will be able to be written in a few hours. Pre-Covid it would have been an in-person 3-4 hour exam. I'd imagine the expectation of what is written isn't much different. It's a question of time management - she should be able to spend 24 hours on each exam (realistically maybe 12 hours - she'll need to eat, sleep, shower, walk round the block to clear her mind etc during that period as well), with no detriment.

Her disability though I understand may make this difficult to deal with - what does her support plan say?

To give my thinking, OP:

If DD is registered with Disability Services and/or already receiving exam and/or coursework mitigations, I think she can bring that to bear in the present situation. If she is registered with DS she should write to them directly. She should not necessarily expect a reply for a few days, because many university staff are on leave this week and will then have a backlog of email to work through. If DD is not registered with DS but receives mitigations within the School, she should approach her Teaching and Learning Officer (or whoever organised the mitigations) from the disabilities perspective.

Again it is crucial that she understands the guidance. If it suggested that students spend no more than, say, six hours on each exam, then even with extra time my university would expect her to do one exam each day. My strategy only has a chance if there is an expectation that students have the better part of two days to devote to one exam.

As final year students usually have many optional modules I would also ask how DD can be so sure only a handful of students are affected? Might others not have in-person exams at some point during the 48 hrs?

Assuming DD is either registered with DS or receiving mitigations in School: if the guidance is as loose as has been suggested and only a handful of students are affected, I would expect DD’s approach to result in a solution for all of them and extra time for her. If loads of students share the conflict I would expect extra time for DD on the basis of disability, but not a general solution.

If DD has not been working with DS or her School regarding her disabilities, unfortunately it is not clear what will happen if she initiates a relationship now. But it could be useful for her final term.

Yes she is registered with disability services and they are cc’d in on the whole chain of emails. I’ll get dd to have a look at the exam guidance for clarity. She has mentioned her disability in the email and although it gives her leverage in some ways I think it is irrelevant, this would be unfair even if she was a neurotypical student.