Debre Tabor University DTU Examination

General Provisions of Examinations

As a matter of general principle continuous assessment in the form of tests, reports, assignments, presentations, etc. should be made for every module/course which shall count for not less than 50% of the total module/course mark. The remaining 50% shall be allotted for a final exam at the end of module/course. However, some disciplines such as Medicine can set out their own general guidelines.

79.1.Examinations may be written, practical, oral, etc. depending on the nature of the course. However, in those cases where examinations are conducted orally, a written record of the student’s performance and the basis for the determination of grades shall be kept by the instructor(s).

79.2.The number, type and schedule of exams or tests in a course are determined by the modular/course team but shall be stated on the course outline/syllabus to be issued to students at the beginning of the course.

79.3.A course outline/syllabus, as a matter of routine, shall include information on the distribution of points/mark among various types of exams and other works in percentage terms. A copy of the course outline shall be submitted to the academic units at the beginning of each module/course.

79.4.Copies of all exams, tests and quizzes, along with their answer keys and marking schemes, which go into the determination of a student’s final grade in a course, shall be kept with the instructor for at least one year. However, copies of the periodic exams along with their answer keys and marking schemes shall be deposited with the academic unit within three days following the administration of the exams.

79.5.In those cases where a course is taught by the same instructor to more than one section of students in the same program, examinations shall be of the same form and content. The same scheme of grading shall also be employed.

79.6.A common examination paper shall be prepared in case where more than one instructor teaches a course with the same title and ECTS/credit hour to one or more sections.

79.7.Where common examination(s) have to be given for a course(s) taught by more than one module/course instructor, the academic unit that offers the course(s) shall ensure that all instructors involved in the teaching of the course have reached an agreement on the content of the exam(s). The academic unit that offer such courses shall work out procedures by which reviews of exam questions for such courses will be carried out by a full panel of instructors involved in the teaching of the courses. Instructors are required to be present at meetings in which exam questions are reviewed and determined for such courses.

79.8.Where common exams are given or, where more than one instructor teaches a course, a panel of instructors shall work out a marking scheme and a copy shall be submitted to the academic unit before the completion of marking.

79.9.Examination papers prepared by the instructor or a panel of instructors shall be submitted to the module/course team for review and endorsement.

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79.10.Final grades for all module courses shall be reviewed and endorsed by module/course team.

79.11.Final grades shall be submitted by the instructor to the registrar and with a copy to the head of the academic unit on duly signed official grade report form. This document shall be prepared legibly with no alterations or erasures.

79.12.A copy of grade report sheets and minutes of the module/course team for all courses shall be kept at the academic unit.

79.13.An official grade report form shall be filled out only by the instructor(s) who had taught the course, set or participated in the setting of the exam questions and marked the exam papers.

79.14.When, for reasons beyond control, the provisions of sub-article 13 of this Article cannot be met, the setting of examinations and the marking of exam papers shall be carried out by a qualified member of staff designated by the academic unit head.

79.15.In those cases where the head academic unit had to designate someone other than the instructor who had taught the course to either set or mark the examination, the Head shall forthwith present the case to the SC/DC for endorsement.

79.16.Students have the right to see their corrected exam papers on demand.

79.17.Official grade report forms shall be prepared by the registrar and shall carry all the names, ID numbers of students who have been on the official class list for the course.

79.18.Under no circumstances may students be allowed to handle grade report forms, including forms on which grades have not been filled out.

79.19.Grades shall officially be announced to students by the registrar.

79.20.Academic unit must make sure that instructors on leave have submitted the grades of students in their hand before departure.

Article 80: Periodic and Exit Examination

Students in the University shall sit for periodic/holistic and/or exit exams without prejudice to the continuous assessments:

80.1.A student may sit for one of the two final/holistic exams to be administered consecutively at an interval of two weeks at each time.

80.2.Students shall be registered for exit exam upon successful completion of all the modules that may be required by the program.

80.3.Exit exam, if any, should be identified with course title & code.

80.4.The grade point of exit exam should not be included in the computation of either semester or cumulative status of student.

80.5.The exit exam result shall be rated as Pass (P) or Fail (F) status. The pass mark at the exit exam shall be determined by respective program to qualify for graduation.

80.6.Exit exam, if any, shall be given once in a year for graduating students and the period shall be indicated in the academic calendar.

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80.7.A student who failed the exit exam can repeat it twice but no special reexamination schedule shall be arranged for failing students. The student shall be academically dismissed for good if he fails for the third time.

Article 81: Administration of Examinations

81.1.The number of candidates sitting for an examination in every exam hall shall be prepared in advance of the examination by the module/course team leader or delegate and shall be handed over to the invigilators for purposes of checking attendance in the exam.

81.2.No student may be admitted into an exam hall 15 minutes after the beginning of the examination. However, all examinations must start on time and no corrections and other announcements made for students at the beginning of the exam shall be repeated.

81.3.No student may be allowed to leave an exam hall within 30 minutes of the beginning of an examination and before signing the examination attendance sheet.

81.4.In the event that a student is forced to leave an exam hall for health reasons, and in so far as the student is in a conscious and sound state of mind, the invigilator in attendance shall inform the student of the fact that certification from any legally established public medical institutions has to be obtained expeditiously to substantiate the claim of sickness or illness.

Article 82: Violations of Examination Regulations

82.2.Any one of the following shall be interpreted as an act of cheating in an examination or any other graded exercise and shall have direct consequences on the marking or grading of all kinds of examination papers, term papers, projects or senior essays and for the determination of academic status of students.

82.1.1.Found in possession and copying from pieces of paper or any other source of information brought into an exam hall where such material is not specifically permitted.

82.1.2.Working on or being found in possession of exam papers other than one’s own.

82.1.3.Exchanging information in the exam hall through oral, symbolic, written, and electronic or (holding electronic devices) any other means where these are not specifically permitted.

82.1.4.Making use of someone else’s work, or parts thereof, without acknowledging the same and with deliberate intent to represent such material as one’s own.

82.1.5.Sitting on an examination in a course for which one has not been registered.

82.1.6.Taking an examination by proxy, i.e. through a secondary party.

82.1.7.Submitting a work or works for which it can clearly be established that the work or part of it is not produced by the student claiming authorship or production.

82.1.8.Disorderly conduct in an exam hall, including refusal to accept and abide by instructions given by the invigilator.

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82.1.9.Copying or trying to copy from any other student or deliberately letting any student copy from one’s exam paper.

82.1.10.Engaging in any other act that is deemed inappropriate to the smooth and fair conduct of the examination.

82.1.11.Being caught in the act of avoiding to sign attendance sheets in an examination or trying to leave examination halls without submitting answer sheets in ways that could lead to claiming absence from the hall; and

82.2.Any one of the following shall be interpreted as intention to cheat in an exam or in any other graded exercise, and shall have direct consequences on the marking and grading of all kinds of examination papers, term papers, projects or senior essay and for the determination of the academic status of students.

82.2.1.Being found with any kind of written material not officially permitted into the exam hall in any form (on paper, on clothing, on body parts, etc.) or with equipment and devices of all kinds such as cell phone that are not specifically permitted.

82.2.2.Evading signature of attendance sheets in an examination or trying to leave examination halls without submitting answer sheets in ways that could lead to claiming absence from the hall.

82.2.3.An invigilator who apprehends a student in the act of cheating in an exam or exercise shall forthwith inform the student that his/her behavior will be reported. The invigilator shall also make as detailed and complete note of the incident(s) as possible in preparation for this reporting. The invigilator shall collect all evidence of cheating (copies of plagiarized material, scraps of smuggled papers, notebooks, exchanged exam papers, prohibited devices, testimonies by other supervisors, etc.).

82.3.Where the act or intent of cheating has been committed in an exam hall, the instructor or the invigilator shall sign on the exam paper and allow the student to continue to work on the exam and report the case to the concerned academic unit.

82.4.Where the invigilator discovers evidence demonstrating that there was intent on the part of the student to cheat but no clear evidence that the student has actually cheated, the student shall be permitted to continue to work on the exam but shall be told that the behavior will be reported. The invigilator shall collect all pieces of evidence on intent to cheat in preparation for reporting.

82.5.All pieces of evidence on cheating or attempted cheating and reports in justification of decisions made by the invigilators on the spot shall forthwith be submitted to the course instructor who in turn shall present to the academic unit head in which the student is enrolled.

82.6.The Head of the academic unit shall present the case to the SC/DC which shall determine if there had indeed been a clear case of cheating or of intended cheating. The SC/DC has the authority to seek additional evidence to reach a decision, including one of requiring the candidate involved in the act of violation to testify.

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82.7.In the event that the SC/DC finds a clear case of cheating, it shall decide and inform the instructor of the course that the student obtains an “F” grade for the course/module. For other disciplinary measures including warning or suspension for at least one semester the case shall be forwarded to students’ discipline committee.

82.8.Where the incident of cheating has occurred for the first time in the course of a student’s stay in a particular program, the academic unit head shall warn the student in writing and publicize the case within the campus.

82.9.A student who has been reported for cheating for the second time shall be suspended for at least one academic year by the SC/DC. Any student who commits such an offence for the third time while enrolled in a program shall be dismissed indefinitely. Dismissal shall be recommended by the SC/DC and approval by the AVP.

82.10.Where a cheating incident or intent to cheat involves more than one student the following procedure shall be followed:

82.10.1.If all students happen to be enrolled in the course in which the incident has occurred they shall all be penalized in the same way and equally;

82.10.2.If any one of the students happens not to be enrolled in the course but happens to be a student of another year in the same academic unit or in any other unit of the University system, that student’s case shall be referred directly to the head of the academic unit or AVP and the provisions sub-articles 10 & 11 of this Article shall apply.

82.11.Without prejudice to disciplinary actions that may be taken on the student, cheating cases, including those of plagiarism, shall have consequences only on the grade points the student would have earned from the examination or exercise on which cheating had occurred and not on the overall grade he would earn for the course. Thus, if a student obtains zero points on any of the test or a term paper due to cheating or plagiarism, that should not constitute ground for a grade of “F” or for disqualification from the course as a whole.

Article 83: Regarding and Remarking

83.1. Re-grading

83.1.1.Re-grading is an act made by instructors to correct mistakenly submitted grades within three days of submission with no payment.

83.1.2.Re-grading shall not exceed for more than 3 students. If it exceeds more than 3, it shall be approved by the dean and the instructor will be responsible for disciplinary measures that will be taken by the dept.

83.1.3.Re-grading is done on a form prepared for the purpose and the form should be collected from the registrar office.

83.2.Remarking

83.2.1.A student who is aggrieved by the grade obtained in a course shall have the right to petition for remarking their exam paper on the basis of the conditions set forth hereunder.

83.2.1.1.The student has the right to see the results of their examination papers.

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83.2.1.2.The petition shall be formally submitted to the head of academic unit within the time frame set in the Academic Calendar.

83.2.1.3.The maximum number of courses that the student can apply for remarking shall be only two at any one time. However, if the remarking result proved that the complaint of the student was correct, the remarking shall not be counted against the student in which case the student may apply for additional remarking as the case may be even after the time frame set in the Academic Calendar.

83.2.1.4.A grade obtained in remarking shall be final even if it is lower than the one previously obtained.

83.3.Re-marking Procedure

83.3.1.Each academic unit shall be in possession of the standard application form to be filled out by students who petition for re-marking. Such forms shall require of the student to specify the reasons for disputing the earned grade.

83.3.2.Upon receipt of the petition for remarking, the Head of the academic unit will, after consulting with the instructor of the course, decide on whether or not there exists a basis for granting the request and where the request is denied the student shall be informed in writing the reasons for the denial.

83.3.3.If it is decided that a student’s examination shall be re-marked, the Head academic unit shall:

83.3.3.1.obtain all relevant exam papers and grade distribution scale employed by the instructor;

83.3.3.2.Obtain the answer sheets or papers written by the petitioning and other students in the section to which the student belongs.

83.3.3.3.The Head of the academic unit shall then assign at least two Academic Staff members who shall do the remarking separately and who, if necessary, may consult with the instructor who originally did the marking and report separately to the Head

with a recommended grade.

83.3.4.The Head of the academic unit shall then decide what grade to give to the student taking into consideration the grades given by the three Academic Staff members. The module/course team leaders submit the final result to the head in three copies. The head then:

83.3.4.1.Signs and sends the hard and soft copy to the office of the Registrar;

83.3.4.2.Signs and sends one copy to the Head of the academic unit concerned; and

83.3.4.3.Signs and sends one copy to the course instructor.

83.3.4.4.If, at the end of the remarking process, there is conviction beyond reasonable doubt that the first marking was prejudicial to a particular student in ways that prove that the instructor was deliberately intending on harming the student academically, the head shall take up the matter through proper channels for disciplinary action against the course instructor in question.

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83.3.5.If a student, upon petitioning for remarking, had claimed that there might be motives for which the instructor unfairly graded the student’s papers, and if, upon the completion of remarking the paper, no evidence of unfairness is found, the instructor concerned shall receive a letter from the Head of the academic unit exonerating the student of any allegations.

83.3.6.The case of a student who had filed unfounded allegations against an instructor in connection with the marking of examination papers shall be forwarded by the module/course team leader which offers the course to the head of the academic unit in which the student is enrolled for disciplinary measures.

Article 84: Supplementary and make up exam

84.1.Supplementary Exam (Fx cases)

84.1.1.If a student scores a total number grade within the range [30, 40) in any course s/he has the right to sit for reexamination but only for the final exam (not for the continuous assessments) the new result will be added to the previous continuous assessment and grade will be calculated.

84.1.2.Supplementary exam is administered within the first two weeks of the subsequent semester. If the student fails to sit for the sup exam within this time, he/she will be penalized by converting the grade to F at the end of the period. However, for the summer program, sup exam will be conducted within the first two weeks of the next summer.

84.1.3.A student is allowed to sit for sup exam when the SGPA￿ 1.00.

84.1.4.The scored grade will be submitted to the registrar. If the student scores again number grade in the range of the “Fx” or ‘F’ the instructor submit the grade scored without change to the registrar.

84.1.5.A student who scored a grade of ’F’ for any prerequisite course for the third time will be dismissed for academic reasons. However, graduating class student who scored ‘F’ grade in any course for the third time can apply for course allergic if he fulfils minimum credit points required for graduation.

84.1.6.A student who has obtained “Fx” grade in a course with fulfilling the required attendance shall be allowed to take re-exam. A student who scored a grade of ’F’ for any prerequisite course for the third time will be dismissed for academic reasons. However, graduating class student who scored ‘F’ grade in any course for the third time can apply for course allergic if he fulfils minimum credit points required for graduation.

84.2.Make Up Exam

84.2.1.Make-up examinations shall not be allowed for the purpose of raising grade point averages. However, a student unable to sit for an examination for extenuating circumstances, such as hospitalization or accidents, and therefore has an “I” (incomplete) grade against a course may be allowed to sit for a make-up examination in the course.

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84.2.2.Any such student, or a person representing the student, shall submit in writing valid and documented reasons for not having sat for the examination to the Head of the academic unit within two weeks after the start of the subsequent semester.

84.2.3.If the makeup examination is pertinent to continuous assessment part of the course, the case of the student can be decided by the instructor of the course and the head before the final examination.

84.2.4.Where the SC/DC finds that the student did not have valid reasons for not sitting for final examination, the “I” grade on the student’s record shall be changed automatically to “F”, SANG/SGPA shall be calculated and the status of the student shall be determined accordingly.

84.2.5.An actively enrolled non-graduating student who is allowed to sit for a make-up examination shall normally register for the examination at the beginning of the semester when the final examination in the course is next administered.

84.2.6.A non-graduating student who is not actively enrolled but allowed to sit for a make-up examination shall apply and register for the examination at least one month (the dates to be announced by the Registrar) before the final examination of the course is scheduled to be administered.

84.2.7.A graduating student within the final semester who fails to sit for final examinations in one or more courses for valid reasons shall be allowed to sit for make-up examination within three weeks of the following regular semester. However, if such a student is in the first semester of the final year, shall be allowed to sit for make-up examinations in a maximum of two courses within three weeks of the following semester.

84.2.8.Notwithstanding sub-article 2.6 of this Article, a student who has three or more “I” grades in a semester and is allowed to sit for a make-up examination shall, irrespective of academic status, withdraw from the University for academic reasons and apply for make-up exam as in Sub-Article 2.6 hereof. No SANG/SGPA shall be calculated and no academic status shall be determined for such a student until the results of the make-up examination are known.

84.2.9.No SGPA and CGPA are calculated for a student having one or more I grades unless the I grade (s) are converted into any of the letter grades.

84.2.10.For those students having one or two grades, make up exam is administered within the first two weeks of the subsequent semester. If the student fails to sit for the makeup exam within this time, he/she will be penalized by converting the grade to F at the end of the period. However, for the summer program, make up exam will be conducted within the first two weeks of the next summer.

84.2.11.A student who has less than three (one or two) “I” grades in a semester and who is allowed to take a make-up examination may continue studies in subsequent semesters if the student is able to achieve promoted or warned status after makeup exam is administered. No status is determined for such a student before I grade is removed.

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84.2.12.For students having three or more I grades, if the grade is not removed within a year as per the provisions of this Article, it shall be converted to an “F” grade.

84.2.13.For the grades to be accepted by the office o registrar, a minute shall be compiled and send.

Article 85: Re-Examinations

85.1.Re-examinations shall be allowed for a student in any year who may not have a possibility of repeating a course(s) due to discontinuity of an academic program and/or a graduating student.

85.2.The following shall be the conditions under which re-examination is to be granted:

85.2.1.The courses are those that the student had taken during the foregoing semesters of the program;

85.2.2.The maximum number of courses shall be two for a graduating student and a maximum of four for a student described under 1.1 above; and

85.2.3.The student’s CANG/CGPA must be such that when an input of minimum 1.7 or “C” grade on the course is made as a result of the re-examination, the student qualifies for graduation or promotion. During the student’s tenure at the University, a student can sit for re-examination only twice in the same course.

85.3.A student who fails in the final year essay or project shall be allowed to re-register for the essay or project to have it completed during the subsequent semester.

85.4.Re-examination Grade

85.4.1.The grade obtained for re-exam shall be recorded for the subject.

85.4.2.Re-examinations are allowed for Fx grades as indicated in part 7.4 (Student Assessment and the Grading System)

85.4.3.Moreover, a student may be allowed to take re-examinations for modules/courses he scored D or even C-. However, such opportunities should be decided by the Academic Commission in consultation with the academic advisor of the student.

85.4.4.A graduating class student may be allowed for re-examination of a maximum of two modules/courses. A student may sit for a re-examination of four modules/courses for which the possibility of repeating is non-existent due to program discontinuity. Re-examination may be allowed for a student whose CGPA must be such that when an input of a minimum of 2.00 or “C” grade on the module/course is made enables him to qualify for graduation or promotion. The grade obtained for re-exam shall be recorded as it is for the module/course.

85.5.Time and Administration

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85.5.1.Re-examinations shall be administered any time within three weeks after the commencement of the subsequent semester;

85.5.2.If the time of examination extends into the next period of the training, students shall be allowed temporary registration. Depending on the results, the registration may be cancelled or retained as soon as the status is determined.

85.5.3.The Academic Unit Head, on behalf of the SC/DC, shall determine and notify re- examinees, set and announce dates of re-examinations to students and Academic Staff within three days after beginning of the semester. The course/module instructor shall submit to the Registrar the grades of students within two days of the examination dates.