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.

Gently, OP:

The student services team are usually very student-centred and concerned with exam conflicts, and usually a member of the team is involved in mitigations for students with special needs. So your characterisation of the team as unhelpful was surprising. This is why the academics here are wondering about the guidance for the exams.

Everyone knows that quite aside from anything else, denying a student with special needs their educational rights would be asking for trouble. Of course mistakes can happen but the norm is to be very, very careful that they do not.

But I would bet a lot that @titchy is correct and there was never any intent to spend (the waking part of) 48 hrs doing an exam! I think that interpretation is quite possibly driven by your DD’s disabilities. It is the most likely explanation for why no one is helping, frankly, and for why the other students affected aren’t protesting.

Therefore, seeking extra time to accommodate the disability may be reasonable (depending on guidance).

It is great that she has been cc-ing DS to her correspondence, to create a record. But that isn’t as powerful as asking them directly to help her. If they are overwhelmed they may not even be reading cc messages adequately.

I would approach the Chancellor of the University and suggest a solution

That is rubbish advice. The Chancellor is never involved in this sort of bread & butter issue. Just ignore it, OP.

There are solutions, so I'm not sure who or what office your DD gas been talking to @Hattiedoodah

In order of efficacy, she should consult in order:

1. an email to BOTH module convenors to outline the timetabling problem
2. Department administrators are often wizards/witches for this sort of thing. So the Department administrator may know exactly who to telephone.
3. The Student Guild or Student Union. There will be an Education Officer - s/he will have a direct line to the Associate Dean for Education (well, they do at my place).

It is likely that she will have to do one exam very shortly after another, with a rest break of course, and will be in isolation between the two, without phone etc.

Or she may be offered a deferral to take one exam in the late summer. I'd advise her to hold out for just doing on exam straight after the other, in isolation.

I did Finals where one day we had a 3 hour exam for one core module in the morning, to be followed by a 3 hour for the other core module in the afternoon. You cope.

And I agree with @poetryandwine and @titchy (I generally do). In this sort of "take home" exam, the idea is to take away the stress of the unknown in the 3 hours of an exam hall. Students can use notes & refer to text books in a take home (properly referenced of course). But they are NOT expected to spend ALL of 48 hours on an exam.

We mark these like exams not essays (and there is a difference).

And often students offer FAR BETTER work in this limited time span. They can't faff. They just have to get on and write and do it.

I think this is why your DD's university is not responding as your DD might wish @Hattiedoodah But she should have some sort of mitigation for a recognised learning disability - the usual would be extra time in exams. My place gives around 15 minutes extra for a 3 hour exam, so she could argue for an extra 4 hours (15 minutes x 48hours/3)

The problem with 48 hour exams and final year options is that there is a finite number of 48 hour slots in the exam timetable. There may be only three non- overlapping slots per week add in a reluctance to run online exam submission without full IT support and there may be even fewer. The programme I taught on had something like 16 final year optional modules so overlaps were hard to avoid. Thankfully it returned to in person exams last year. Our 48 hour exams were intended to be done in the two hours that would have been allocated to the equivalent in person exam. Students should have revised and prepared in exactly the same way as they did for in person exams. We had to introduce strict word limits for every question to stop students writing reams of irrelevant stuff.

When did she email? Most university staff seem to be off until Monday 8th I think.

I work at a university. Most staff, even in admin areas like mine, have taken holiday until Monday 8th and therefore would not have even read the email. This scenario is even more likely with student centred staff and the email may not be read until the start of term.

So, difficult as it may be, she needs to be patient. It is very unlikely that they are deliberately ignoring her as all academic staff are constantly scrutinised regarding student success and student experience. Once term starts I would expect this to be dealt with as a priority.

What did the student union say? I’m surprised they haven’t been able to help.

The student union misunderstood what dd said and talked a lot about reasonable adjustments being listed on students requirements (which they are) and asking if dd registered with disability services (which she did when she started her course. They said an alternative possibly for her to use the mitigating circumstances procedure for any outcome to be adjusted after the exam.

The thing is dd knows perfectly well how 48 hour exams work, she is in her final year and has done many before. If the University doesn’t expect hours and hours of work done then they should set shorter time periods but my real point is that whatever they do, surely each student should be given the same. For dd working within a time limit is fine. Working within time limits which overlap is going to be very difficult. Given her disabilities which both make her executive skills quite poor, this is an unnecessary complication to an already stressful situation.

No response yet from Disability services. Her faculty, who were the ones who originally said essentially ‘tough crap’ have had the problem re-referred to them by the student advice team so hopefully someone will have a proper look on Monday.

In some ways I know we are fortunate in being able to add weight to her complaint because of her disabilities but I can’t help thinking it’s a pretty raw deal for any student to be given more or less time because the University can’t timetable properly!

OP,

Please forgive the request for clarification, but are you telling us that it is expected for students to use the full waking part of 48 hrs for a 48 hr exam at your DD’s university? That would be different from the understanding of all the academics who have weighed in here.

Several PPs have explained that the long window within which to find your exam slot is a convenience for most students. One can, and we do, greatly sympathise with special needs students without believing that policy for the whole cohort should be constructed with their needs uppermost in mind. This is why I believe your DD can and should request appropriate extra time.

Having two exams in two days, or even two exams on the same day, is just the luck of the draw. My UG exams were three hours long, sat in halls, and we could only petition for relief if four were timetabled on the same day. It’s part of growing up. Come to that, some A level timetables are quite brutal. Only the disability is grounds for leverage, as determined by Disability Services.

Timetabling has been the bane of universities since time immemorial. As someone said upthread, there’s only so many 48 hour periods. These types of exams were incredibly rare pre-pandemic, so they’re also a fairly new phenomenon to try and crack.

I can understand why, on the face of it, the policy may be that you have enough time even with the clash to spend the recommended amount of time on both exams.

However I agree that your daughter’s needs make it reasonable that additional arrangements are made not to disadvantage her, be it through additional time or moving the exam. One option may be to ask to defer the exam to the summer period - will her other modules have many 48 hours exams come May/June?

Also did she clarify with the SU and ask again specifically about addressing the clash?

With apologies to certain PPs: my post above should have said academics and professional support staff as the PSS are the real experts on so much!

@poetryandwine Please forgive the request for clarification, but are you telling us that it is expected for students to use the full waking part of 48 hrs for a 48 hr exam at your DD’s university? That would be different from the understanding of all the academics who have weighed in here

As I said, dd has done many 48 hours exams and she and I ( being an adult with a fully functioning brain) understand that the full 48 hours is not going to be spent writing an essay. However my dd is incredibly bright and passionate about her subject. She wants to give her all to every exam and for her that will be having time to think carefully about each question, dip into any research she has done etc. Also, if you know anything about autism, you will know that big picture stuff is incredibly difficult. So having two papers to do, requiring all her attention, having the time overlap and therefore having to decide how to allocate time (which other students won’t have to do, being able just focus on one) is going to be incredibly stressful for her. It is a skill she has been working on as an adult but I don’t see why a final year exam should be deemed to be the perfect time for her to have mastered it!

My UG exams were like yours. Imagine if for one of your papers you were told, everyone else is getting 3 hours, but because we can’t timetable properly you are going to combine two of your papers and then give you 3 hours for both.

I almost think the fact that she has a disability is a red herring, obviously for us it’s a big concern because it makes this situation much more stressful but for any students, if the University cannot timetable 48 hour exams fairly then they need to rethink the system for ALL students. It simply cannot be acceptable for students to have different amounts of time to do their exams due to logistics. Exams are supposed to be the one point of education where the playing field is even. It would never be acceptable in schools or in adult professional exams so why Universities think it doesn’t apply to them is beyond me.

@FilippityFiloppity - yes dd has clarified with the union about what she meant. I’m not sure about the summer exams but I know that dd said she doesn’t have any in halls type exams so I presume yes they will be the same - she likes that she doesn’t have any of halls sort of exams but in some ways I wonder if they might be better than the long time slots - less faffing time as @WickDittington says!

Thanks to all the Uni staff for your posts, they’ve been really useful 💐

OP,

I have had several personal tutees with ASD. To a person they have been wonderful, and each of them has struggled with perfectionism. I know from sitting with DS officers on a number of Mitigating Circumstances panels that this is a typical (not to say uniform) ASD characteristic.

I also note that you’ve not responded to my question about guidance, in light of the fact that every identified or known (to me) university employee on the thread associates a different view to this exam format than your DD does.

I do understand the issues around her executive functioning and this is why she needs relief now. But it seems a distinct possibility that the reason the problem is only apparent now is that absent time conflict, DD has been able to devote far more time than intended by her course leaders to exams in the past. As several of us have said, we think the only favour she is likely doing herself is assuaging her anxieties. This is legitimate but primarily a concern for DS rather than an educational one.

Hopefully she will hear from disability services next week, as others have said plenty of people are still on annual leave.

It sounds like she would be best to plan to spend the first day on one exam and the second on the other, what is the guidance for the amount of time she should actually spend working on them? If she has enough time in the 48 hours to spend that amount of time (plus any extra time she gets because of her disability) then I imagine they won't do much.

She probably could seek to defer one of them on the grounds of her disability, but a) she should be sure this will be approved and b) that will likely defer it to August and so delay her graduation, which is something final year students often forget and then are upset by!

I haven’t asked dd about the guidance - completely slipped my mind. She’s gone to the British Library today to study with a couple of friends so I will ask her on her return.

With greatest respect (and being a teacher myself as well as a parent of two ASD children) having a couple of wonderful ASD tutees does not qualify you to understand much about autism - I barely understand it myself having taken a qualification in it and living with two autistic children for the past 18 years. You are correct about the perfectionism for many (but not all) autistic people. She also has ADHD (very common comorbidity) which very effectively hampers her desire for perfection.

@ColleenDonaghy I agree about August - I don’t think dd will be keen on that. She’s planning to start her masters in September so don’t think she will want to delay her graduation.

I’m going to have a search for the guidance myself in DD’s absence.

From an outsider’s POV (no DC at uni) this seems very unfair. I understand completely that students are only expected to work for a few hours during that time, but that doesn’t change the fact they’ve been given 48 hrs.

So other students have 48hrs to account for extra research, technical difficulties, life admin, their perfectionist tendencies or just however they choose to spend the time. But OPs child only has 24hrs. Either give them all 48hrs or all 24hrs. Giving them different amounts of time is grossly unfair.

Thanks Ermengarde! This is exactly how I feel.

2 online exams? Or one online, one in person?

I haven’t pretended to be an expert, OP. But for you to morph my experience of several tutees plus far too many hours on Mitigating Circumstances into ‘a couple of tutees’ is not helpful.

All the academics have been saying that the guidance is the key. If students choose to abuse it, that’s on them, @Ermengarde . None of us are familiar with guidance suggesting that more than a few hours per exam be used. It isn’t impossible that the DD’s university uses a different system but given the efforts towards consistency across UK HE it would be surprising.

PS. OP, is DD aware of any other students amongst those with the same conflict who are unhappy with the arrangement?

This was a Covid entry cohort. They were dealt a bad hand but it is fair to say that their lecturers and PPS (themselves imperfect to be sure) have not found them the easiest to deal with. If there are real grounds for complaint I would expect the whole affected group to be vocally unhappy. You haven’t indicated any knowledge of this.

May have done an actual snort reading this. Although one of my final year classes has really come along and turned into the loveliest bunch.

No I don’t know what any other students are thinking about it. Dd is a great student, she is super keen, very hard working and passionate about her subject and has been singled out for her academic excellence by her department so I slightly resent the implication she is a Covid cohort difficult student.

The academic guidance I’ve found on exams on the university website says the details will be either on her timetable or the assessment rubric so I’ll ask her to have a look when she’s back. Obviously the rubric won’t be available until the examination so if it’s on there she’ll have no idea until then.

@poetryandwine you said several. That suggests a small number and sitting on a committee isn’t the same as taking time to learning about autism or living with it or people with it. I would have thought that was fairly easy to comprehend.

You could try office for students once you have gone through the university complaints procedure. Sounds like a 'computer says no' situation