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"Setting a deadline for notification of exam results"  [19.06.15]

The Suggestion:

"It's probably happened to everyone. You wait for months for notification of your exam results. A deadline of 4 weeks after the examination date should be set - it worked great at my old university in Bonn. I don't understand why it's so hard here."

Background on the topic

Regulations in Hohenheim

• Exam results should be corrected within 6 weeks. (Recommendation from the Senate Commission for Teaching from 2012, which has been included in most examination regulations.)
• Exam results must be made public 10 days before the next re-sit examination date, otherwise the department has to offer an additional re-sit date (Senate decision).

Statistics – since summer semester 2013 (entire University)

• Average length of time until grade notification: 22 days
• Percent of examination results that were not made public until after the recommended 6-week deadline: 15%

Maximum Corretion Time

Since the 6-week deadline is only a recommendation, the de facto deadline is the regulation about 10 days before the next re-sit examination.

This results in the following maximum correction times (in weeks):

*) Based on examination periods: 2014/2015

The Responses:

Prof. Dr. Iris Lewandowski, Vice President for Academic Affairs

"The existing regulation was introduced in the course of a comprehensive re-structuring of the examination organization in 2012 - and it was intensively discussed with the faculties, the Examinations Office, and student representatives in advance.
 
The system introduced then has since proven itself. One particular advantage for students is that two examination dates are available during each examination period - it is therefore guaranteed that they can re-sit the examination promptly.
 
However, there was also a side effect that was discussed in detail even then: For examinations that are taken on the second examination date, they must be corrected in addition to the regular semester workload. This can lead to staff shortages and thus also to longer correction times.
 
Despite this problem, student representatives were for the current solution so that on the one hand there was a possibilty to count on two examination dates and on the other hand a guaranteed re-sit examination close to the original examination date could be offered for all examinations.
 
For the vast majority of examinations, the recommended 6 weeks for correction times can luckily be met. For most examinations, the grades are even made available much sooner.
 
Of course it is unfortunate that the correction times for some examinations are much longer. It is the responsibility of the faculties to support instructors in keeping to the recommended deadline of 6-8 weeks. In extreme cases that are well over this deadline, I recommend that students turn to the student representatives in the Faculty Council or the Dean of Studies in their faculty."

Lutz Gaissmaier, Assistent to the Dean of Studies Faculty W

"In the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, we are aware of the problem.

In fact, especially the large examinations with several hundred participants present a challenge for many departments. To reduce the correction time in all of these cases to a maximum of four weeks is something that I think is currently unrealistic. We simply lack the capacity in terms of personnel.

Still, the Faculty W is making an effort to at least somewhat reduce the correction times. Since the summer semester 2013, several departments use the software "EvaExam." This software reads examination sheets and can automatically grade all types of examination questions, e.g. multiple choice questions. The points can then be added. For large examinations, this is a great relief and tangibly reduces the correction times.

At the beginning, the software was used for selected examinations. In the meantime, 11 departments use the program - and an increasing number are starting to do so. The feedback is all positive, and several departments have expressed interest in wanting to try out EvaExam.

Our hope is that this will then also have a noticeable effect on the correction times for even more of the large examinations."

Research: Leonhardmair

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