Edmund Heaphy | Deputy Editor
Both fourth-year zoology and functional biology students will have to resit their research comprehension exam after the exam paper was accidentally uploaded to Blackboard last week.
Students sat the exam this morning, before the problem became apparent to course administrators. An email to affected students sent this afternoon by Prof John Rochford, the Zoology Course Co-ordinator, said that “the only fair thing to do is to reset the paper and rerun the exam”, after “the draft 2015 paper was inadvertently uploaded to Blackboard” following a “request from a number students for details of last year’s Research Comprehension paper”.
The research comprehension exam, part of the assessment for the core research comprehension module, is worth 60 per cent of the five-credit module. The exam consists of previously unseen data in tables, figures and diagrams, and students are expected to interpret the data.
“As Research Comprehension is not a subject that can be revised, but instead is based on common sense and general competence, this hopefully will not cause too much distress”, Rochford said in his email.
The remaining 40 per cent of the marks in the module are given for blog posts that should show comprehension of scientific studies in the fields of evolutionary biology and ecology.
The rescheduled exam is due to take place on Thursday, May 14th.
“On behalf of all in Zoology, I should like to apologise sincerely for an inconvenience caused”, Rochford said.
