Self-Scheduled Nightmares

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I am glad that Tom S. Hixson '94 has been thinking about the mid year and final examination process at Harvard ("Scheduling Our Hell," January 17, 1992). I assume many FAS students feel similarly and I am glad to be part of the dialogue. It is true that the current examination system is often unwieldy, frustrating and inefficient; however it is fair. Much of Hixson's piece discusses the "self-scheduled" final examination system. I don't think this could work at Harvard.

Mount Holyoke self-schedules about 3100 examinations over four days. The Harvard scheduling office will make arrangements for over 21,000 test takers over the nine-day examination period. At Mount Holyoke's rate we would have to annex Memorial Hall for nearly a month, and that would be the length of the examination period. Assume we hired enough proctors to staff the Exam Center and assume again that we could get the job done in nine days. These are very large assumptions when you think that each student writing an examination would make two trips to Memorial Hall for each examination. This examination period, that would mean 42,000 trips to Memorial Hall over nine days, an average of nearly 4700 trips per day, over 575 examination to be given out or taken in each hour. Also, since we would not take in any exams for the first three hours, nor give out any after 2 p.m., the "day" would be even shorter, meaning even more congestion at the Exam Center.

Once each student received the examination, there really aren't that many places to write a self-scheduled examination. The registrar controls less that one-third of FAS instructional space. Even if we booked all that space for self-scheduled examinations, you would still end up with many distractions. Students would be coming into the classroom all day, getting settled, greeting friends, deciding to try another room. So try the House. Should students from Cabot get extra time to allow them to get back to the house and begin the exam? Extra time to get back to the Exam Center? How much time? What if you got to the House and there was a party in your suite? In the Common Room? On to the library, as the three hours ticks away. Hope you brought your own study carrel.

Hixson makes several statements that I would like to rebut. The first is that this proposal would "make it impossible for anyone to complain." This is a fantasy common to many of us in the Scheduling Office, but we have yet to create a system where this is so. Some component of the process will not work for some people, and we will hear from them.

The second is that self-scheduled examinations would eliminate the sick-out. There is always a final day of the examination period, even at Mount Holyoke, and the well-timed 24-hour flubug will enable the determined student to get four or five make-up examinations, not just one.

Third is the idea that the examinations would come in for grading in a more or less steady flow. Not likely. Were you at study card day last September? Hours from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. We should "reasonably" expect a steady stream of cards at Memorial Hall. Imagine my surprise when by 2 p.m., less than one half of the cards I expected were in. You all (or a lot of you) saw the result. People put off unpleasant things.

Last, the proctors are supposed to distribute extra bluebooks, pencils, extra pens. They also do an amount of administrative work and escort students to the infirmary as needed. They should not be asked questions about the content of the examination. On a recent day, the proctors in Memorial hall would have had to be conversant in Intro Psychology, Major British Writers and Elementary Akkadian in order to provide the type of help Hixson seems to want. The course head or delegate is responsible for answering questions on the examination itself, and if no person from the course is in the examination room, then the head proctor will call.

I and others in the scheduling office agree with Hixson that a discussion should begin regarding the implementation of an honor code at Harvard. We no longer escort student over the lunch hour between the morning and afternoon examination sessions, nor do we escort anyone to the restrooms. I think that the great majority of people would not cheat, but I disagree that the potential for cheating on finals is only marginally increased in a self-scheduled examination system.

Especially in larger courses, the idea behind holding a final examination is that many faculty members place some value on having every student in the course respond to a specific set of questions over a specific time period. As the number of smaller courses increases, the number of courses holding three hour final examinations is falling. In January of 1971, this office administers almost 450 examinations. This year we administered 365. (This is one reason we were able to change to a nine day examination schedule.

Proctored examinations in a specific time and place have a number of advantages. The most obvious is a level playing field. Students will be judged by what they know, and then compared to the rest of the class. Mistakes in the examination copy can be corrected. Charts and maps that were left out can be added. The course head can give special instructions. The room will be quiet and disruptions will be halted and documented. If he or she chooses, the course head can have media components--slides, video, audio--for the examination. An honor code might help make certain aspects of scheduling examination easier or less costly for us, and possible less stressful for students, but I don't think is time to junk the proctored examination system in favor of self-schedules. Joe Maruca   Assistant Registrar, Scheduling Office