Exam FAQs for Instructors
General Info
This online form asks for critical information that will help the exam administrators correctly administer your exam. It also asks where you will be during the time your examination is given in case questions arise, and it asks you to designate an alternate if you will not be easily accessible during this time. To complete the exam information form, log in to the Grades/Roster system, select the term, and the click on the "Final (Pending)" button.
Please e-mail a copy of your exam, including the instructions page, to your faculty assistant three business days before students will take your exam. Staff requires sufficient time to copy your exam, check its format, and organize its administration.
Yes, all exams (including both in-person and take-home exams) must have a cover sheet. You can generate cover sheets automatically in the Grades & Rosters Application once you have submitted your exam information. The generated cover sheet will include all necessary information and provide a space for instructors to add any personalized additional instructions. You will need to fill in information specifying total number of questions and how many pages are in the exam.
The number of hours for the final exam often matches the number of credits offered for the course (2-hour exam for a 2-credit class, etc.), but this is not a requirement; however, for room scheduling purposes and to avoid conflicts with other exams, in-person exams should generally not exceed 4 hours.
If you're interested in viewing exams written by other instructors, please contact your faculty assistant. They can provide you with the names of instructors who have taught the course at UCI Law and can contact those instructors on your behalf to request permission to share their exams.
If, during the administration of the exam, you discover an error in your exam that you want to correct immediately, please contact the Assistant Dean for Student Services or the Law School Registrar. They know where each student taking your exam will be located and they can inform the student(s) of any changes.
It is especially important that exam cover sheets clearly state what materials students are allowed to use and all special instructions. Faculty members should avoid using old exam questions or questions in use at another institution if there is any likelihood that doing so will provide an unfair advantage for some students over others. Faculty members should carefully enforce and abide by the instructions they have created.
In-Person Exams
In-person exams can be secure or non-secure in the ExamSoft program. In secure mode, students will only have access to the actual exam in ExamSoft and all other programs will be disabled on the computer. If an exam is non-secure, students have access to everything on their laptop, including the Internet. There is no way to provide partial access with the ExamSoft program.
If you are giving an open-book exam, you must explicitly state in your exam instructions and on your exam cover page what type of materials are permitted. If you want students to have access to books or printed documents only, it would be advisable to require students to bring hard copies of these items.
If you are allowing access to electronically stored and online materials, please also address the issue of cut-and-paste (the ability to cut and paste information from online/computer resources into the answer of the final exam). Keep in mind that we have a handful of students who will write their answers in bluebooks and that giving access to electronic outlines or notes might adversely affect these students.
It is essential that each of you be available during your exam, or, if you cannot be available, that you designate an alternate who will field any questions that arise. However, for reasons of confidentiality, you should not be in the exam room during any portion of your exam.
Exam administrators will hand out exams, give time warnings, and collect exams at the end of the session, but they do not remain in the room nor are they available during the examination to answer questions.
If a student taking an in-person exam writes beyond the time allowed, or if there is any other irregularity with a particular exam, a short note will be attached to the front of that student’s exam or bluebook. If you have any questions about a note attached to an exam, please contact the Law School Registrar.
Take-Home Exams
Students are given more flexibility as to where and when they take these exams, but the exams still have time limits. In these types of exams, the instructor expects the students to start and finish the exam within a specified, limited amount of time. This time limit is set by the instructor. The instructor can require students to take the exam on a particular day, or within a specific window of days, or on any day within the official exam period. Instructors may also specify word or page limits for their exams.
Instructors must designate in their exam instructions how they will handle student compliance with the exam time limits. After exams have been submitted, instructors will receive copies of the exams along with a list of any anonymous numbers that have gone over the designated time, and by how much.
Accommodations and Rescheduling
Students with disabilities who ask that they be accommodated during exams should already have gone through our formal process for receiving exam accommodations. Faculty members should not be making individual arrangements for students. Please refer all students with disabilities/accommodations questions to the Dean of Students.
LL.M. students who have not, prior to their enrollment at UCI Law, studied English for a period of more than one year, will be granted up to an additional 30 minutes per hour in which to complete their exams, as well as the use of a spelling and translation dictionary (electronic dictionaries are not permitted). Eligible students will be notified of their accommodations prior to the start of the exam period.
Students are required to take their exams at the times designated on the exam schedule -- we are not flexible in this regard.
Our policy allows students with certain exam conflicts (two exams at the same time or in consecutive periods, or three exams in three days) to reschedule an exam. Students will be informed of our reschedule policy and those who fall within the reschedule rules will complete the process of rescheduling their exam(s).
Note: We do not allow students to take exams early nor do we reschedule exams for students who want to or have planned to leave town before the exam period has ended.