Deferred Examiminations

	Computer Science Administrative Information

Last modified: 2002 August 20

Deferred Final Examinations Procedure -- Summer 2002

This is only for COSC 1030, 2000- and 3000-level deferred examinations. 1020 students write the final examination with the next term and the 1500-level courses arrange their own time and place.

Schedule and Booking Space

Students may have to sacrifice conflicting commitments to be able to write in the scheduled time.

If students cannot make it on the scheduled day and time then they will have to petition their home faculties for a deferred exam.

Students write on September 4
Exam time is 6 to 9 pm.
Course directors should wait a week after their examination to increase the likelihood of having all cases dealt with in one session.
Course directors email or give a written note to the ug@cs.yorku.ca. Please include the following information.
- course name and number, and section
- A choice of desired times (may be overridden by the undergraduate office)
- the number of students
- name of each student
- the student number of each student.
The undergraduate office will select a time that the group can write.
Emphasize to your students that "Students are responsible for checking the date and time of the scheduled deferred examination". If they miss their exam, they will have to petition.

Other Requirements

Exams will be closed book -- to make it feasible to handle a variety of exams for different courses.
Students can only take pens or pencils with them. No paper of any kind. They do not leave the room with any paper.
Exams can be 2 or 3 hours in length.
Course directors deliver to the office sufficient copies of exams by 4pm, Tuesday, September 3.
TAs will sign-in the students and invigilate the exams.
Exams are returned to course directors for marking.
Please still fill out and return to the undergraduate office a deferred standing agreement, so there is no confusion between you and the student. Specify the date as September 4.

Instructors, may choose to make their own arrangements with students but the above procedure may be more convenient in many instances.

Deferred Standing agreements

In some cases students may not be able to complete course work on time, cannot attend the final examination or miss a final examination. Students can present a Deferred Standing Agreement form to the course director. If the course director and student agree as to what needs to be done and by when (a few days or a couple of weeks after the end of the examination period then the form can be completed by specifying the details of the deferred standing agreement. The most common use is to have an examination on a different day -- can be either before or after the formal examination time -- or have some term work handed in late. Typical reasons are medical, examination time conflict, and a person has to be away to due work committements.

If the period of time is more than a couple of weeks after the examination period, then the student should petition their home faculty for a deferment.

Course directors do not have to agree to deferred standing unless they are convinced that either the grounds are valid and the circumstance has been documented sufficiently to be convincing. If an instructor is not comfortable signing a deferred standing agreement form, they should inform the student that the student may petition for deferred standing.

Deferred final examinations are organized by the course director -- setting of the time with consultation with the student (especially if a deferred examination is granted by petition), finding the room and having invigilation.

Petition forms and procedures

Petition forms are obtained from the Registrar's office and typically take months. Students petition their home faculty -- neither the undergraduate office nor the departmental petitions committee deal with deferred standing petitions. Petitions require instructors to fill out a Course Performance Summary form that states what work the student has or has not done, what grades they got, what the due dates where, by when did students know their grades and other information. Students take course performance summary forms to course director, who can either give completed form back to the student, or send the form directly to the registrar's office. Students can also submit the course performance summary forms to the undergraduate office. The undergraduate office forwards the form to the appropriate course director or, if the course director is not available, fills in the form as best it can from the grades information course directors give to the office (see the section Telling the Department the final grades) in the web document Guidelines for CS Instructors.