Students have the right to inspect an exam up until six weeks after receiving a grade. They also have the right to ‘receive sufficient opportunity to look through all examination questions and answers, to ask the instructor responsible or his/her substitute questions, and to make notes and take them with him/her’.
But lecturers often forbid students from taking notes, because they’re afraid they will copy the entire exam text. ‘We’re allowed to sit in a room and stare at the screen’, said Andrew Christodoulou, who represents student party Student United on the behavioural and social sciences faculty council. ‘We can’t even bring a pen.’
Not aware
The students with PSB were also familiar with this situation, they said during a faculty council meeting. ‘If you refer to the TER or bring a copy, they’ll let you take notes’, faction chair Anniek Kievietsbosch says. ‘Lecturers just aren’t properly aware of the rules.’
The faculty board said that taking notes during the inspection is definitely allowed. ‘We have to think about how to communicate this’, says BSS vice dean Klaas van Veen. ‘It’s in the TER, but no one ever reads those. We have to avoid these kinds of collisions.’