Mathematics Instructors.
Many of you have received e-mails from students requesting flexibility and/or modifications to the final exam offering. For all courses (except for Math 2A and 2B), we believe that these decisions are best left up to the individual instructor. If you are teaching a course with multiple lectures/instructors (e.g, 2D, 2E, 3A, etc), we encourage you to consult with your colleagues to see if a course-wide policy (e.g., all Math 2D sections have the same policy) would make sense, but this is not a requirement.
Below, we are providing you with the following guidance about your options.
Guidance on Final Exams (except for Math 2A/B)
- You are strongly encouraged to not cancel your final exams. You may make final exams optional.
- With all of these options, if a final exam was stated in the syllabus, an exam offering must be given at the time designated by the registrar. If a time/date was not designated by the registrar, then the final exam time/date should have been already made clear to students.
- IT IS YOUR CHOICE IF YOU WANT TO MAKE THE FINAL OPTIONAL.
- If you choose to make your final optional, we encourage you to make the policy that taking a final will not lower your grade. Thus, if you take a final, there is no harm. Therefore, the final course grade = max {score with final, score without final}.
- Be clear with students on how the final course grade will be determined in the “no final” scenario. This should include a revision of the weights for the other grade components.
- Remind your students that they have until Friday to exercise their P/NP option. We discourage you from giving students indications of what their grades would be, as this would compromise the spirit of P/NP (see Registrar’s email).
- We expect that grades this quarter will not fall into the traditional grade distribution for our Math courses. In particular, a ‘better-than-normal’ grade distribution is acceptable, given the current crises.
The Mathematics department is here to support you in your decisions. Thus, please make the decision that you feel is best for your class and for your students…you know them best! Communicate any concerns or questions to Zhiqin, and we will do our best to make sure you can focus on teaching your courses and delivering appropriate final exams.
Thanks Chris, Bob, and Neil for the extensive discussion of the guidance!
Attachments:
2A/B: Neil Donaldson
2D: Hamed Youssefpour and Scott Northrup
2E. 3D: Kenn Huber
3A and 13: Bob Pelay
9, 10, 105, 110: Shuhao Cao
In particular, C- and below will record as NP, C and above will record as P. An instructor just needs to enter a regular letter grade. If the student requested a P/NP, the system would automatically change it to P/NP. Nothing particularly needs to be done on the instructor’s side.
More information from the adminstration.
Dear Colleagues,
As we prepare to administer final exams, we wanted to send a quick note with some resources and reminders. We recognize that many of you already administered midterm exams remotely and that the mechanics of teaching are currently something of a work in progress.
The Academic Senate and the Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning have developed the following guiding principles to keep in mind when planning your exams:
- An examination is a pact between students and instructors. Students expect a fair exam that gives them an opportunity to show what they have learned in class. Instructors must in turn be able to trust students will act with academic integrity.
- Students should be advised up-front that they can contact their instructor for accommodations with remote exams on an ad-hoc basis. These accommodations should be made for students with challenges accessing the software, students with disabilities, and students concerned about privacy issues. In addition to any accommodations that the instructor provides, students may also contact the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning to request opting out of remote proctoring services.
- Faculty should anticipate that students may have technical issues. They should not assume that any claimed technical problem is an attempt at cheating.
- Students should not be required to use third-party exam-proctoring software. That is, students have already paid for Examity, Respondus, and Zoom through their tuition and eTech fees, and should not be required to pay extra for an alternate proctoring option.
- Faculty who believe they may have found a better commercial or home-grown option for remote exam proctoring should share this information with the Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning so that it can be properly vetted and approved prior to use.
We also ask that you consider the following recommended practices not only for finals, but when scheduling all remote exams:
- Lengthen exam times. Instead of a one-hour exam, for example, consider scheduling two or more hours in anticipation of possible technical issues on the student side.
- Survey your students about their time zones. Early on, find out what time zones your students are in so that you can plan for flexible exam start times or other accommodations.
- Make exam start times flexible, if needed. An example is a two-hour exam that can begin at one of 2-3 start times to account for most time zones. Perhaps the best compromise among flexibility, academic integrity, and instructor workload is two different exam versions with different start times.
Information on remote exam monitoring and proctoring is available here. Because of concerns about privacy and data sharing, the only third-party proctoring solutions approved for use at this time are Examity and Respondus. Please be aware, however, that there are known issues with both. At this time, Examity provides limited live proctors, and neither Examity nor Respondus work with Chromebooks. Please keep this in mind if you plan to use either software.
Further, both Examity and Respondus monitor individual students and behaviors using video and video analysis during a remote exam to preserve academic integrity. Before using either, instructors should notify students that they will be recorded. Please use this language: “This program uses video recording or other personal information capture for the purpose of facilitating the course and/or test environment. Pursuant to the terms of the agreement with UCI, the data is used solely for this purpose and any vendor is prohibited from redisclosing this information. UCI also does not use the data for any other purpose. Students who wish to opt out should contact the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning at 949-824-3291.”
Alternatively, Zoom can be used much in the same way we proctor exams in person, with instructors and TAs viewing students and their environments during the exam. Due to data privacy concerns with third-party solutions, some UC campuses have restricted remote proctoring options to Zoom alone.
You are welcome to contact the Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation or the Office of Academic Integrity & Student Conduct to discuss privacy-protective alternatives, including how to use question banks in Canvas.
Thank you,
Michael Dennin
Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning
James Steintrager
Chair, Academic Senate