Extended and Separate Exam Administration

Calendar Item: 
1218
Docket Number: 
1114
First Name: 
Susan
Last Name: 
Wurtz
Facts: 

Whereas:

1. Provision of extended exam time in a separate and private setting is an entirely necessary and appropriate accommodation for some students.

2. Such provisions entail a complex set of variables:

a. Time when the student can be available to sit for the exam
b. Time when the professor can be available to proctor the exam
c. A room that meets the requirements for privacy and quiet
d. Need to administer the exam at the same time or very close to the same time as the regularly administered exam to ensure:

i. Equity when it comes to amount of time in which to prepare for the exam
ii. Timeliness in grading and reporting results to the entire class
iii. Security in terms of students being in a position to leak information about the exam (either direction)

3. UNI Student Disabilities Services (UNI-SDS) has multiple years of records to be able to assess the level of demand for such testing provisions.

For example, one day next week I will need to proctor a 50 minute exam in class (and hold two other class sessions) AND I will need to find a two-hour block of open time in my work schedule during which a particular student AND a room are available, AND I will need to find yet another two-hour block of open time on my schedule, again within the constraints of another student’s schedule and room availability.     In some cases, my experience has been that comparing my schedule and a student’s schedule shows that taking course schedules (mine and the student’s, work schedules (again, mine and the student’s) and personal obligations (I.e., child care) into account leaves NO mutually open time in which to schedule the separate administration of the exam.  The juggling act that ensues is a poor use of professors’ time and a misuse of university resources.  

Further it does absolutely nothing to generate an environment in which the academic provisions of ADA are perceived to be normal, business-as-usual processes.  Instead provisions appear as burdensome (and perhaps grudgingly complied with), special treatment.  And this perception involves many cases in which the students themselves are only beginning to tentatively come to terms with the aspects of their lives that generate a need for reasonable academic accommodation.

Action: 

Therefore be it resolved:

UNI-SDS shall install a set of exam rooms – whatever number their records indicate are needed to meet the demand across campus, and UNI-SDS shall provide proctoring service.  Said proctoring service shall include:

  1. scheduling the rooms (protocols can be established for student responsibilities and professor responsibilities and for time frames to avoid unreasonable, last-minute demands)
  2. receiving exams from profesors and storing them securely both before the students take tthem and when the exams are completed until professors pick them up (I would not recommend using campus mail)
  3. assuring that students take only the materials the professor for each exam specified as allowable into the exam room and providing lockers or other secure storage for students’ possessions that must be left outside of the exam room.
Final Action Taken: 
No further action taken.
Meeting Date: 
Mar 10, 2014