Final Examinations Policy

University Policy

Title

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Policy on Final Examinations

Purpose

This publication is intended to bring together the policies and procedures developed by the University for the administration of required final examinations.

Policy

General Provisions

The Faculty Council has approved various policies and procedures regarding examinations. The following section specific to undergraduate classes was developed by the Education Policy Committee (EPC), of the Faculty Council. Resolution 2017-5, passed on April 21, 2017; Resolution 2017-5.1, passed on May 15, 2017.  In order that we may have uniform administration of this policy, the criteria, procedures, and standards below were developed and approved by EPC to apply to all schools and departments as of March 2018.

Final Examination Criteria

• For graduate and professional level courses, final examinations, which may or may not be written, may be given at the option of the college/school dean and the instructor.
• Undergraduate courses taught on campus must include a final assessment (e. final examination) unless the Provost grants an exception. A traditional final examination is administered at a predetermined time as specified in the official final examination schedule, and takes place at a designated location on campus. Any other type of final examination is considered nontraditional. (For any undergraduate courses offered entirely online or via other distance modalities, refer to the Standard on Undergraduate Course Exemptions section.)
• The final examination schedule, announced prior to the beginning of the semester, sets the day and time for each examination. No graded quizzes or exams (excluding in-class presentations) may be given during the last five days of the semester (last two days of the session for summer school) before the beginning of the final examination period. No examination may start later than 7:00 p.m. Once having been established, the schedule cannot be changed. Traditional final examinations must be held at the day and time shown on the schedule unless an exception is granted as described below.
• Only the Provost can grant exceptions to the scheduled time and location of a traditional examination after review and approval of the appropriate department head and the dean. No examination (except for laboratory sections) may be held at a time other than that specified in the general schedule except with the advance approval of the Provost.
• For a standard undergraduate three credit hour course, the University has a required three hour final examination period, which includes 180 minutes of instruction in each semester (see the University Policy on the  Definition of a Credit Hour). Thus, the University requires instructors to provide a full three hours of instruction for final assessment purposes (e.g., written final examination, presentations, portfolio review, performance, review and evaluation, or some combination of these assessments). It is up to the discretion of the instructor of record to determine the form, content, and function of the final examination (e.g., whether it is cumulative; whether it is a three-hour exam or a shorter exam preceded or followed by a period of review; etc.). A traditional final examination should not exceed a period of three hours. Only examinations requiring an exceptional portion of practical work should be longer than three hours (e.g., student teaching).
• Chairs (i.e., heads of instructional units) must give permission for faculty members to use nontraditional examinations. Examples of nontraditional examinations include those requiring more than three hours to complete; or other final assessments such as a portfolio of a semester’s work, a final project, or a take-home examination. For multidisciplinary and co-taught courses, permission to give a nontraditional examination must be granted solely by the chair of the instructional unit in which the course is based. Even when faculty members have permission to administer nontraditional final examinations, the scheduled examination period must be utilized for instructional hours. The chair should submit to their academic dean’s office an annual summary of the exceptions that were granted.
• Only regularly enrolled members of the class whose registration is on the University Registrar’s Office maintained class roster may take the final examination in any course. Students auditing a course do not write examinations or papers and do not participate in class discussions unless otherwise directed by the course instructor. The Registrar’s Office will not accept final grades for auditors.
• For any University undergraduate courses offered entirely online or via other distance modalities, exams will be offered and must be completed during the scheduled final examination period, but requirements concerning the time of day and place of the exam will be appropriate to the course’s mode of delivery. Self-paced courses are exempt from both the time and place requirements of the exam policy and the requirement that exams be held during the scheduled final examination period.
• Students who are absent from an examination receive a course grade of AB (absent), which is equivalent to F (zero quality points), or FA (absent and failing regardless of performance on the final examination).
• Students who miss one or more final examinations because of illness, religious observance, or other circumstances may seek approval for absence from a final examination. Students who have an approved absence from the final examination must be granted permission to take the exam at an alternate time, although students will need to arrange a mutually convenient time with the instructor. Except when the provost has provided an exception in writing, the exam will be taken at a time subsequent to the regularly scheduled exam, though no later than the end of the following semester.

Student Pledge

Per The Student Code of Conduct of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (I. Students, C. Sign; II Communicating Expectations and Administering Examinations, B. Sign), each student is required to sign their name to the following honor pledge or its equivalent on every assignment including the final examination:  “I hereby certify that during this examination I have neither given nor received aid.”

• The instructor will not report a final grade for any student whose examination paper lacks this pledge. In these cases, a grade of “IN” (incomplete) will be entered on the electronic grade roster in ConnectCarolina.
• If the student later signs the pledge, the instructor may then report their proper grade to the University Registrar’s Office as an Official Grade Change.

Final Exam Materials and Grades

Faculty members must retain on campus in their office all final examinations and unclaimed tests, term papers, and homework for one year after completion of a course, as mandated by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources and noted in the General Records Retention and Disposition Schedule.  It is desirable that faculty members keep these records for three years.  Faculty members who leave the University are requested to deposit grade records from the prior three years with the department chair.  In the case that a student contests a course grade, faculty members can confidentially dispose of coursework after resolution of the formal protest one year after completion of a course.

These requirements are based on students completion of requirements to replace  temporary grades, such as“AB” and “IN”, in courses which they took with instructors who are no longer members of the faculty.

Procedure for Final Examination Schedule Change

The purpose of this procedure is to outline for instructors the process to request a time change to a scheduled final examination period from the Provost.  This policy is applicable to all faculty instructing a class with a required traditional final examination.

The following outlines the procedure for instructors or departments requesting in advance to change the time of an examination for an entire class after it has been fixed in the schedule:

• Requests to combine all sections of a specific course into one final exam day and time (regardless of the number of sections involved), is considered a request for a Common Hour exam and has an earlier deadline for submission. Requests for all common hour exams must be cleared by the chair or appropriate dean and approved by the provost. Requests for common hour exams must be made to the University registrar the first week of February for fall semester final examinations and the first week of September for spring semester final examinations. There is no exception to this deadline.
• A course instructor may, due to highly unusual circumstances, petition for a one-time change in the examination schedule. The instructor must submit the request in writing to their chair no later than the last day of late registration for that term, and it must be cleared by the chair and the appropriate dean (e.g., Associate Dean, Academic Advising) before consideration by the provost. If the petition is approved, the course instructor assumes responsibility for making special arrangements to give the examination to any student who has a schedule conflict as a result of the change. This process only applies to requests to change a day or time for an individual section. The change could be made only to one of the other exam periods in the schedule. Such changes will be granted only under the most extenuating circumstances.

Standard on Undergraduate Final Examination Course Exemptions

This standard documents approved exceptions to the required final examination for undergraduate courses. It is applicable to all faculty instructing undergraduate courses.

Undergraduate courses must meet during the final examination period, announced prior to the beginning of the semester.

The following courses are exempt from meeting during the final examination period:

1. Independent study courses, including Senior Honors Thesis, Undergraduate Mentored Research, Internships/Practica, and Directed Readings.
   1. Senior honors thesis students must pass an oral examination or other appropriate form of evaluation, but the honors thesis advisor and examining committee are exempt from holding the oral examination during the final examination period.
2. Courses with fewer than three credit hours (e.g., 1.0, 1.5, 2.0), provided they meet the minimum number of contact hours during the semester (i.e., 750 minutes for each credit awarded). See the University Policy on the Definition of a Credit Hour. Courses with one hour of academic credit may administer their final examination during the last class period.
3. UNC-Chapel Hill courses taught off campus (e.g., faculty-led study abroad programs, Burch Field Research Seminar programs), provided they meet the minimum number of contact hours during the semester at the designated location (i.e., 750 minutes for each credit awarded). See the University Policy on the Definition of a Credit Hour.
4. Self-paced courses
5. For any undergraduate courses offered entirely online or via other distance modalities, exams will be offered and must be completed during the scheduled final examination period, but requirements concerning the time of day and place of the exam will be appropriate to the course’s mode of delivery.

Undergraduate courses taught on campus must include a final assessment (i.e. final examination) unless the Provost grants an exception. A traditional final examination is administered at a predetermined time as specified in the official final examination schedule, and takes place at a designated location on campus. Any other type of final examination is considered nontraditional. The following are the only courses permitted to administer a nontraditional final examination, at the time of approval of this standard:

• First-Year Seminars
• ENGL 100, ENGL 105, and ENGL 105i (English Composition and Rhetoric)
• Courses approved by the unit chair (i.e., head of instructional unit) for a nontraditional final examination.

Important Dates

Effective Date: 
Additions/Revisions: