YUSU to clash with departments over exam errors

YUSU have urged students affected by assessment errors to contact them directly after a string of exam-related blunders by departments.

Academic Affairs Officer Ben Humphrys advised students to speak to the union immediately after an affected exam–bypassing official complaints procedure if necessary.

Humphrys made the announcement in YUSU’s weekly email to all students at the university. “[The errors are] a continuation of a trend,” he told The Yorker. “We had some quite serious issues last summer."

“This year the issue seems to have been the organisation of the first year exams. That’s been across the board: I’ve heard stuff from physics, biology, history, a couple of others”.

The news comes after a spate of errors across all years in the administration of summer exams.

In April, the Politics Department mistakenly published a second-year exam paper online prior to the assessment.

And final-year English students were given the wrong passage to study in a translation exam, but were asked to complete the paper regardless.

Students had prepared to translate a specific section of a text, but were given a different passage in the exam.

English Department Chair of Examiners Richard Walsh confirmed that students had been “distressed” by the mistake, but promised to take the error into consideration.

“The Board of Examiners…will scrutinise [each student’s] profile to ensure that no student’s degree result is adversely affected by their mark on this exam,” Walsh told The Yorker in a statement.

Humphrys’ comments will be greeted with caution by departments, who have their own procedures for dealing with complaints. Richard Walsh advised affected students to contact the department directly.

“Their first recourse should always be to communicate their concerns to the Chair of Examiners, so that the Department can address the problem,” Walsh said.

Humphrys denied that asking students to contact YUSU directly undermines departments’ authority.

“There’s no circumstance in which I wouldn’t say come to YUSU first”, he told The Yorker. “It would be ridiculous of me to say spend 12 days going through every single departmental process.

“It would just turn people off. People want results, they don’t want to spend ages going through bureaucracy”.

YUSU will advise students to make use of department procedures where appropriate, Humphreys added: “but we’re the primary student representatives. If you have a problem with your student experience, the first people you [should] contact are us."

“Departments are keen to sort this stuff out, but there’s also a self-preservation thing going on. The department can never represent students against themselves…you need an external force to do that”.

It has also emerged this week that the Economics Department is withholding second year exam grades until the end of term, in defiance of University policy.

Students are supposed to receive marks no more than six weeks after an assessment is taken, but affected students have been told they will not receive results from start-of-term exams until the end of June.

Releasing results sooner “could prove distracting ahead of the sitting of later exams”, said Peter Burridge, Chair of the Economics Board of Examiners.

However, Humphrys said: "there's no point in having University wide policies if they aren't adopted University wide; Economics doesn't get any special treatment and they should meet student expectations like any other department."

"We're lobbying for online feedback on assessments, mainly because it would allow for easy tracking of missed deadlines and swift responses," Humphrys added.

YUSU have pledged to support an official complaint against the department if the issue can not be resolved through course representatives.

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