At University College London our timetable is just as complex. We try if we
can ( but we do not guarantee) not to hold two exams, for same students, on
the one day but in many cases it is just not practicable. Yes students do
complain and also if they find that they have examinations without any
break of a day or a morning or afternoon. Unfortunately this is the result
of 'modularisation' it is not possible here to offer flexibility and a wide
choice of options in programmes AND a flexible examination timetable given
the restrictions on time and space.
pauline Ensor
Director, Student Administration.
At 11:18 29/04/99 +0000, you wrote:
>We seem to be getting more students complaining about having 2
>exams on one day during the main summer exam period (although
>I don't believe the numbers in this position are significantly greater
>than in previous years). Do other institutions give their students any
>commitments about examination load/pacing?
>
>Warwick's degree courses give students a very high degree of
>option choice, across departments and faculties as well as within
>departments (especially in the final year of undergraduate courses).
>This of course results in extensive clash lists for a lot of papers (it
>is not unusual for some larger papers to accumulate 80+ potential
>clashes with other papers). The 4 week June exam period
>incorporates papers examining 1160 modules and a total of 43,450
>candidate places. Further restrictions on scheduling are of course
>finite room capacity and the requirement to conduct final and first-
>year exams earlier in the period than intermediate-year papers.
>All this means that is logistically impossible to produce a timetable
>which gives no student more than one exam on one day. The best
>general constraint that we can build into it is that no-one gets more
>than 3 papers over 2 days (and occasionally this has to be
>overruled). We also try- as far as possible, anyhow- to avoid
>compulsory core courses being placed in adjacent slots.
>
>I'd be grateful to know how other colleagues who have to cope with
>similar data complexity/course structures see this issue.
>
>Joe Taylor
>Academic Office
>University of Warwick
>Coventry
>CV4 7AL
>
>
>
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