The Academic Registry made multiple mistakes in the organisation of medicine students’ resits, including erroneously telling students that they had resits, providing students with incorrect dates for exams and failing to schedule certain exams on students’ timetables.
In an email statement to The University Times, Thomas Deane, a Trinity media relations officer, said that “there were some errors in the initial scheduling of exams, many of which were down to issues caused by a number of modules that would ordinarily have been completed but which were postponed for examination until later this summer due to COVID-19-related impacts”.
“We regret any distress caused but worked quickly with partners in academic registry to get the issues promptly resolved. As always, we wish all of our students well in their exams”, he added.
The mistakes in their timetables comes after an exam period riddled with complications for medicine students.
In March, final-year medicine students had crucial clinical assessments – worth 25 per cent of their marks for the year – moved forward five weeks, giving students two days notice before the exam.
The week before, medicine students were told in an email that the weighting attached to clinical exams – initially up to 50 per cent of students’ grade for the year – would “be reduced probably to 10 or 15%”.
However, they advised days before the exam that they would be worth 25 per cent of their grade for the year.
In April, The University Times reported that final-year medicine students suspected of cheating in online exams could face a follow-up oral assessment to check if their performance stacks up, among several strict regulations to preserve the integrity of the assessments.
Medicine students in their final year sat real-time online exams, with virtual invigilation through Zoom that meant some could be asked to share their screen at any time.
Students were split into groups of between 10 and 12 and monitored over Zoom by invigilators. The invigilators asked students to show them their work environment, observed them throughout the exam and were able to ask them to share their screen at any time.
Students had to log on before the exam and give invigilators a virtual tour of their working environment. They were allowed a five-minute bathroom break.
Emma Donohoe and Amy Cox also contributed reporting to this piece.
