Mathematical chaos at NMBU

In the exam period before Christmas, 700 students were notified 24 hours prior the exam in mathematics that it was cancelled and moved to an unspecified date at the end of January. Complaints from students and parent were never ending. At the time of writing, we are facing another round of exams, some with both a block exam and a delayed math exam.

Journalist: Sunniva Steiro

Translator: Pauline Marie Søndenå

Photographer: Synne Louise Strømme

A lot of back and forth

This year, almost 700 students were enrolled in the courses MATH100 and MATH111, which is obligatory for most of us. The subjects are challenging, and there are few who want the exam stress to hang over them longer than necessary. This year’s students were initially supposed to have a digital school exam with a grade, but corona – once again – came in the way for the original plans. Later in the semester, the students were told that a home exam would be held instead, as for most other courses. Not until the day before the MATH100-exam, the students were told that the MATH100-, MATH111-exams and the MATH112 and MATH280 re-examinations were moved to an unspecified date at the end of January. The reason was that the study administration preferred that the exam could be conducted on campus.

A fair execution

In an email to the students, Dean Anne Cathrine Gjærde at REALTEK explains that NMBU has great ambitions for the students, and that they thus “must ensure that the exam is as fair as possible.” She further writes that “it is nothing new that the academic community in mathematics prefers school exams over digital”, something many professors and students at other departments will also agree with. The postponement seems to come from the fact that introduction to mathematics is particularly vulnerable to collaborations between students, and the Head of the Student Board (AU), Ina Finnerud, points out that one of the reasons for the postponement has been the focus on the quality of the examination.

Ina Finnerud, AU leder (Copy)

Anne Cathrine Gjærde, dekan REALTEK (Copy)

Are school exams less risky?

In the spring of 2021, the exam in MATH112 was held as a digital home exam, as a measure against corona spread. According to regulations on studies at NMBU, the form of assessment on the re-examination must be the same as the ordinary examination. This will no longer be the case in MATH112 after it was decided that the re-examination will be held at the school. The changes were made due to temporary regulations to prevent delays in degrees and diplomas due to corona. Tuntreet is critical of the fact that there is less risk of corona when changing from a home exam to school exams. It is also strange that a postponement of the exam is more effective in preventing delays, when the result is that students are disturbed in plans for exchanges, block exams, or risk having to take the re-examination in May due to quarantine.

Stress and uncertainty

Tuntreet has been in contact with the student council leader at REALTEK, Maja Raz Karterud, who has received inquiries from several students who are affected by what can be called a math chaos. "I have been contacted by countless students who are incredibly stressed and disappointed with the situation, and who have very little motivation for another semester with a lot of uncertainty," she says. Karterud emphasizes the dissatisfaction of students who do not get a Christmas holiday, who have heavy January block subjects, and who experience that exams collide with start-up lectures. In addition, students with part-time jobs will experience increased stress, or alternatively have to give up shifts in favor of exam reading.

Taken seriously

The student council leader says that she has been in good dialogue with the management at REALTEK after the last announcement of the exam was given to the students, and she feels that they take the matter seriously. Nevertheless, Karterud believes that the management should have been earlier to include the Student Council and the students in the process, so that the whole situation could have been averted. She says that the Student Council would never allow the change without getting the opinions of the students in advance, and that with a functioning student democracy, the management should have reached out as soon as they started the process.

The Head Master apologizes

In a response to a student's complaint about the postponement, the study advisors at REALTEK claim that: "The decision was made by the study administration centrally based on discussions between many different bodies [...]" When asked by Tuntreet why the student democracy was not contacted, Head Master Curt Rice answers: "I did not like having to intervene in exam work and I understand very well that this was frustrating for both students and staff." He also apologizes on behalf of the management of the students who experienced that the exam was changed from physical to digital, only to be postponed, which he says everyone can understand was even more frustrating.

Head Master Curt Rice, Dean at REALTEK Anne-Cathrine Gjærde and AU leader Ina Finnerud all tell Tuntreet that the focus now is to prevent something like this from happening again.

Common guidelines

Finnerud is currently working with all the deans at NMBU to establish common guidelines for predictability and equality across all faculties at the university. NTNU has already decided that all exams in the spring semester will be digital, with the possibility of applying for exceptions, but NMBU would rather encourage professors to have a plan B in place from the beginning of the semester. Ina Finnerud emphasizes that a large proportion of the professors were already well prepared with a plan B in December, and the Student Information Centre (SiT) states that 147 of 187 exams were completed as a digital home exam in December. Only 6 exams were postponed until January, of which four were in mathematics.

Does not wish to comment

Truntreet has not succeeded in getting comments from professors at the Department of Mathematics but interprets "academically sound execution" in the sense that introductory subjects in mathematics are ultimately pure calculation tests, which cannot easily be converted into home exams. The AU leader's proposals for alternative forms of assessment are longitudinal assessment, alternative assessment or alternative digital examination.