Types of Exams

‘Exam’ is a very broad term that can cover several different types of assessment. When preparing for your exams, always make sure you know which type of exam you’re sitting. The two main types of exam are timed exams and take-home exams. Timed exams are usually comprised of short answer/quiz-type questions or essay questions, and are delivered on Canvas with a strict time limit. Everyone in the class takes this type of exam at the same time. Take-home exams by contrast are usually in an open-book essay format with extended submission times ranging from a few days to a couple of weeks.

Make sure you familiarise yourself with which types of exam your lecturer is using, as the type of exam might change for each assessment and from module to module even in the same department! Regardless of the type of exam, however, you are being assessed not just on your ability to recall information, but on your ability to apply the knowledge gained from the module. This is especially the case with open-book exams, where the information is more readily available to you!

This year, many of your formal exams will be hosted through Canvas! Although your lecturers may use MS Teams or Panopto for assessment that involves interaction such as debates or presentations, most traditional written exams will be completed through Canvas. Your lecturers can create specific areas on the Canvas module for exam submission, as well as use it to create timed quizzes or exams. Make sure you familiarise yourself with how the exam is structured on Canvas before the day of the exam! Also make sure to check that you can actually access the relevant modules on Canvas, and to contact your lecturer as quickly as possible if you can’t.

Rules

Even in these strange times, online exams remain just as important as ever! Online exams are university exams and subject to the university’s exam regulations, plagiarism policy and Code of Honour. TurnitIn will be enabled on all submissions. It is important to note that a breach of examination rules is a serious issue and can incur penalties including the awarding of a mark of zero for an entire module.

Key Exam Dates

Exam season can be very hectic and busy, but it’s important to keep in mind several key dates for your exams. These will help you to orientate yourself, and ensure that you keep focused on the end goal! Here are the key dates for the formal exams in the 2020/21 academic year:

Semester 1 Exams*: Semester 1 exams will be held online on dates between January 8th and January 18th 2021, including Saturday, January 9th, 2021
Semester 2 Exams*: Semester 2 examinations will be held between April 30th and May 14th, 2021

* A limited number of programmes will have examination dates outside of these times. Your lecturer will tell you if this is the case for your programme

Dates for the release of exam results can be found at can be found at: https://www.ucc.ie/en/exams/results/

Duration

For the most part, exam duration will be as normal; your lecturer will inform you as to the duration of each exam. In this online environment, an additional time will be allocated. 20 minutes will be provided to allow time to save and upload your work. This is not additional exam time so remember to complete your exam in the time allotted and begin your upload immediately after the exam finishes.

Remember that Canvas will time stamp any submission uploaded. Assignments may be blocked after this time has elapsed, or may be marked as submitted late. If you run into technical difficulties, you should contact your lecturer immediately.

Registration

In order to take an online exam, you must be properly registered for the relevant module. Please check in advance of your exams that you are registered for all the modules you have exams in. If you need to update your registration record, please email sreo@ucc.ie immediately.

Examination Timetables

In the lead up to exam season, you are provided with a personal exam time table through mystudentadmin.ucc.ie. You will receive a provisional timetable first, followed by a finalised timetable closer to the exams themselves. Although there are usually very few changes from the provisional timetable to the finalised one, make sure you refer to the finalised timetable! Once it comes out, the finalised timetable should be your go-to for information regarding exam dates and durations. It is intended that each exam will only run at the scheduled time but some necessary changes may be made to your timetable - if this happens, your module lecturer will inform you of any such change.

Disability Support Service

If you are registered with the Disability Support Service (DSS), please ensure that:

Your Module Coordinator is aware of the exam accommodations you require
You have downloaded and tested any additional software you will be using for you online exams
Contact the DSS at dssinfo@ucc.ie for any additional queries

Where exams are concerned, the most common accommodation that needs to be provided for is extra time, typically 10 minutes per hour, but additional time may be added for rest breaks. Detail of students registered with Disability Support Service as well as their reasonable accommodations can be accessed on DMIS.

Ensuring that the assessment content is accessible is critical for all students that need to use text to speech software/screen reader. We recommend that students use either of the following depending on the format of the exam:

If you would like to know more about the supports available for students registered with the DSS, click the following link.

Plagiarism

Make sure you are aware of the referencing requirements for each of your exams-each Department/Discipline may have their own rules and approaches.

Your exam will be submitted through Turnitin, therefore all normal procedures regarding plagiarism must be observed.

Remember also that collusion – cooperating with other people during the exam - is a form of plagiarism. Self-plagiarism – where you resubmit work previously marked – is also a form of plagiarism. All forms of plagiarism are considered to be serious academic misconduct. All suspected forms of plagiarism will be subject to procedures as laid out in the UCC Plagiarism Policy, available here.

You might find the guide to Paraphrasing your academic sources useful
Find out more about the UCC Plagiarism Policy

Mitigation

Sometimes in the course of exam season, something goes awry. Not to worry, however, as there are procedures in place to help students in times of difficulty! Every student in UCC, in relevant circumstances, is entitled to apply for mitigation.

You can apply for Mitigation where illness, bereavement, accident or other significant and unforeseeable circumstance, impacts substantively on your ability to prepare for or sit an examination. You will need to support your application with appropriate documentation.

You are not required to inform a Department/School/Programme Director that you are applying to the mitigation process, not can your Department/School/Programme Director approve or deny your application of Mitigation.

More information regarding mitigation, especially how it relates to the current Covid-19 pandemic, can be found here.

Appeals

When you receive your results, you may feel that the mark you received is, for one reason or another, not reflective of the mark you feel you should have gotten. In this instance, you may be entitled to appeal the result under specific and defined grounds. Appealing is a serious process, and shouldn’t be taken lightly! You may only appeal final results - provisional marks (released after Semester 1 or before the official release of results of after Semester 2) cannot be appealed.

Full details of how to appeal can be found in section 19.5 of the Guide to Examinations.

Exam Answer Sheet

As part of all your exams, you will be required to fill out an exam answer sheet. This sheet will be provided to you by your lecturer, and will include space for student number; module code; programme and year of study; date and time of exam; a declaration if you are registered with the UCC Disability Support Service; a declaration if you are entitled to a spelling and grammar waiver; and a declaration that all work submitted is your own work. You must ensure that you fill out this sheet when you take your exam.

Viewing Scripts

Viewing of scripts is available to all students. Details of supervised structured viewing of scripts is available on the relevant College website.

Examination scripts are considered to be personal data, and as such you are entitled to request a hard/soft copy of this data. All requests to access personal data must be addressed as soon as is reasonably possible by Academic Units as per the Statutory Obligations of the University. Where the script has been annotated, you are entitled to be provided with that annotated version without any redactions.

Further details on viewing examination scripts can be found through here.

Who to Contact

Generally speaking, if you have any issues - especially during the exam - you should contact the module’s lecturer. If, for some reason, they are unavailable during the exam, they will provide you with an alternative point of contact. If you experience technical difficulties before the exam, you should contact the IT Support Desk.

Please remember to identify any technical difficulties as soon as they occur. If you wait until late in the Semester or until after the exam, it is unlikely that technical difficulties will be considered.