Prelim Policies

Timing of Evening Prelims

Evening prelims will be scheduled on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, except on wellness days and the day immediately following wellness days. Prelims are 1.5 hours long.

Instructors must provide an alternative time for students for whom the schedule prelim time falls outside of 8:00am – 10:30pm in their local time zone; any alternative time must not include time on any wellness day nor on each day immediately following a wellness day.

Courses with evening prelims must indicate this in the course syllabus at the start of the semester.

In-person Prelims

Instructors have the option of giving in-person prelims for any course (for students who are enrolled from the Ithaca area), regardless of its instruction mode (including online and distance learning asynchronous courses).

If a course has an in-person exam, an alternative assessment must be made available for students who are taking the course remotely or who have a pandemic-related accommodation.

Central Scheduling

Central scheduling of a prelim IS NOT NECESSARY if

It is administered in person or online during the regular class time and is an exam that can be completed in the number of minutes allocated to the class meeting (i.e., 50, 75 minutes).

It is administered in person or online within a 24 hour window that includes a regular class meeting time AND the class does not meet on that day (thereby enabling students to use the regular class time to complete the exam); or

It is a multi-day take-home exam.

Central scheduling of a prelim IS NECESSARY if

The length of the exam exceeds the number of minutes allocated to the class meeting and must be completed within a 24 (or fewer) hour period. Even if students are given the flexibility to take the time-limited exam in a time interval of their own choosing, such exams must be scheduled centrally to reduce exam conflicts for students. The allotted time window for the exam must include a centrally scheduled time slot. The rule applies regardless of whether the exam is in person or online.

The prelim is administered in person and requires access to a classroom outside of the regular class meeting time (or requires additional classroom space, beyond that typically needed for SDS accommodations, at the regular meeting time).

Managing Exam Conflicts

If there is a conflict between an exam listed on the university scheduled and an exam not on the schedule, the exam on the schedule shall have priority. The course not on the schedule must provide an alternate time to take the exam for those students faced with the conflict.

If a student has conflicting examination schedules, both of which have been centrally scheduled, the instructors of the courses involved must consult and agree on how to resolve the conflict. Both instructors must approach this resolution process with a willingness to provide an alternative assessment or examination time.

Online Proctoring

The university has examined this question closely and concluded that online proctoring is generally not a viable or desirable strategy. Among other issues, faculty and students expressed concern over the intrusive nature of online proctoring. For in-person courses, exams will be administered much as they have been in the past. For online courses, we encourage instructors to consider alternatives to the high-stakes exam whenever possible. CTI provides guidance and resources about these alternative assessment strategies.

However, acknowledging that there may be some departments or instructors interested in pursuing online proctoring, Cornell does have a contract in place with Examity, a proctoring service. It offers human, online proctoring for individual courses. They have worked with Cornell, and are ready to assist instructors in setting up proctoring. The service is expensive, and departments therefore will need to pay for their own use. In addition, if there is sufficient demand, Examity will also be able to provide automated proctoring, which is less expensive. For more information, please email CTI directly at cornellcti@cornell.edu.

Gradescope represents another academic integrity tool. Gradescope recently released an Online Assignment feature in a beta stage. Timed Online Assignments allow the use of the Respondus LockDown Browser to help facilitate academic integrity, by preventing students from accessing online materials while they are taking the assessment. Instructors need to request access in their courses by emailing help@gradescope.com

Online Exam Resources

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One thought on “Prelim Policies

  1. Please do better for the ChemEs at this school…We cannot have PCHEM and FLUIDS and then FLUIDS AND LINALG…Please please with a cherry on top:)

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