Politics exam paper published online prior to exam

It has been revealed that the politics department published a draft version of this year’s Politics of Development exam paper on the VLE prior to the exam. The paper was available to any Politics of Development student for several weeks before the exam on 26 April.

The Politics department usually make previous exam papers available to students as a revision aid. Vision understands that the draft 2011 paper was uploaded to the VLE by mistake in place of the 2009 paper.

The Chair of the Board of Studies, Dr. John Parkin, has since sent out a mass email to the affected students, apologizing for the mistake. However, the department claims that the paper being on the VLE has had “no identifiable advantage or disadvantage” to students sitting the exam.

The department launched an investigation into the matter, consulting the University Standing Committee on Assessment and the External Examiner for the Politics Department, as well as student representatives. They decided to proceed with the marking process as normal, while also taking into account results from other assessed work in the module.

“This investigation indicated that the information on the VLE site produced no identifiable advantage or disadvantage to candidates who took the examination. The department has therefore decided that it is in the best interests of the students that the results of this assessment should stand,” Parkin explained.

Second year Politics course rep Sarah Hembrough told Vision that “errors like this should not happen”, but added that “the department has dealt with it reasonably well.”

“Although something like this shouldn’t occur, mistakes happen and I think the approach that the department through checking out the facts and giving clear guidance to students about what they were going to do was appropriate, rather than sending mixed messages as has been the case in other departments.”

She is especially pleased with the department’s decision to let the marks stand, commenting that “the last thing students would want on top of other stresses is to have to retake the exam.”

However, a source who wished to remain anonymous, told Vision that the department had been made aware of the issue before the exam, but hadn’t done anything about it:

“The night before the exam, a student emailed the department asking whether it was actually the 2011 exam that was on the VLE, and they were told that it wasn’t.

“There was only one question on the final exam that I couldn’t recognise from the draft version, all the other ones looked more or less the same,” the source continued.

There was no specific mention of this in the email sent out to students, though Parkin did stress that students should get in touch if they had any further queries. He also added that “we [the department] have taken action to ensure that such mistakes will not arise again.”