Approved by Senate March 29, 2001
Revised May 21, 2008
Policy
If an examination is disrupted with greater than 30 minutes remaining in the exam period, student should expect that the exam will resume if the venue is declared safe within a reasonable time interval. Instructors will be notified as soon as possible and will have the responsibility to decide how to deal with the interruption and its effect on the exam. In all cases, information will be posted on the departmental website as soon as possible after a disrupted exam.
Context
A number of false fire alarms and false bomb threats were experienced during the April and December 2000 examination sessions. The Vice-Principal (Academic) struck a working group on examinations to address issues about examination disruptions, as well as other exam-related matters. The February 7th report of the working group on examinations asked SCAP to consider several exam-related issues, including a review of the University's regulation on disrupted Examination.
At present, all disrupted exams are abandoned. The SCAP sub-committee on examinations approved this regulation several years ago following an exam disruption, an event that rarely happened at the time.
SCAP sought the advice of its sub-committee on examinations on the matter of changing this regulation. In light of the dramatic increase in security issues surrounding exams, SCAP and its sub-committee agree that in the event exams are disrupted, when time and space permit instructors who so chose should be able to have students resume their exams.
The SCAP Subcommittee on Examinations reconsidered the policy over 2007/08 in light of the increase in the number of distributed exam venues due to the elimination of Jock Harty Arena. The Subcommittee adopted a revised procedure for the December 2007 exam period and, after its success, chose to make the procedure change permanent beginning in the April 2008 exam period.