The introduction of fully digital exams at the law faculty has not led to lower exam grades, contrary to concerns student parties had raised earlier.
In fact, the pass rate has slightly improved in the past academic block compared to the previous year, rising from 75.4 to 76.4 percent. Adjusted for student numbers per course, this represents an increase from 68.2 to 68.5 percent. ‘It’s a small improvement, although barely noticeable,’ education director Jaap Dijkstra told the faculty council last Friday.
Students had already been taking exams digitally for some time, but the law faculty decided in November to no longer hand out the questions on paper after an incident where they accidentally ended up in the mailbox of a study association. The change was also intended to save costs.
No highlighting
In December, student parties in the faculty council were still concerned that exams would be performed worse because students wouldn’t be able to highlight text in long exam questions and might have difficulty switching between questions and answers.
Progressief Rechten (PR) and Ten Behoeve van Rechtenstudenten (TBR) therefore submitted proposals to address these issues.
‘But I have seen little or nothing of that,’ emphasised PR faction chair Gjalt Joostema during a faculty council meeting. He asked the law board to make highlighting within exam questions in Brightspace possible.
Sharing costs
Dean Wilbert Kolkman stated that longer exam questions are provided in PDF, which means students are already able to highlight text. For shorter exam questions, an adjustment to Brightspace would be needed. Due to the costs, Kolkman would prefer to do this together with other faculties.