General Examination Policies

Scheduling exams outside of class time

Many CLAS courses schedule midterm assessments during their regular class meeting times, or assign midterm work that can be done on students' time (such as essays, projects, and online asynchronous tests). Some CLAS courses, however, need to administer midterm examinations in person, outside of those courses' regular meeting times.

CLAS courses are eligible to request a midterm examination scheduled outside of their regular class meeting time if they meet the following criteria:

The midterm examination must be administered in person.

AND at least ONE of the following:

• The course has over 200 students enrolled and needs more physical space for testing than for class meetings.

  OR

• The course is taught in multiple sections but needs all students across those sections to take the test at the same time.

  OR

• The course has over 50 students enrolled, meets for a 50-minute time block, and requires more time than 50 minutes for the midterm examination.

Requests for midterm examinations outside of regular class times can be submitted via the Exam Needs Tool in MAUI Offerings Planner in a manner similar to the final exam needs submission process. Evening midterm exam submission instructions are located on the MAUI Help page.

Submitting requests early increases the likelihood of securing preferred dates and times. Only individuals with offerings planner access for your department can submit evening midterm exam needs. This means that instructors will not be able to submit evening midterm exam needs unless they have offerings planner access.

Please also refer to the Office of the Registrar's policies regarding evening midterm examinations.

If you do not meet the criteria above and would like to request an exception to this policy, please email clas-curriculum@uiowa.edu. Your email should include:

• name and number of course
• expected enrollment
• rationale for having exam(s) outside of scheduled class time

Exams in online classes

Instructors teaching fully online courses may schedule in‑person proctored exams, while providing reasonable alternative arrangements for students who cannot attend on campus.

Make-up exams policy

Test modifications for students with disabilities

Construction noise during an exam

Final Examination Policies

Administration and scheduling of final exams

Undergraduate CLAS courses are not required to give final examinations. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) expects all courses to include appropriate methods of evaluating student performance, and for many undergraduate courses, those methods will include a final exam. For other courses, however, the final evaluation of student performance will be a paper, presentation, project, performance, or another cumulative activity appropriate to the discipline and the course. 

For courses that do include final exams:

• Information on the use of the final examination period and its duration should be included on the course syllabus. Although final exams are not scheduled by the Registrar until around the fifth week of the semester, instructors should still include in the syllabus whether or not the course includes a final exam, the exam’s duration, and a reminder to students not to plan travel until the exam date and time is announced. After publication, students may access their final exam schedule in MyUI. CLAS also encourages instructors to announce details of final exams in class and on ICON after they are published. 
• Academic department administrators (ADAs) submit final exam needs on behalf of each department. Instructions on how to submit final exam assignments needs are found on the MAUI Help website.
• Final exams can be planned to be 60, 80, or 120 minutes long. The process for reporting final exam needs can be found in the MAUI Help Guide on Exam Administration.
  • If an instructor knows their final exam will not take the full two hours allotted by classroom scheduling, it is extremely helpful for them to report that information. Alternate testing facilities that serve students with time-based testing accommodations (often 1.5, 2, or 3 times the standard amount of time given for an exam) will be able to plan more accurately and serve more students. 
  • It is important to note, however, that if an instructor reports that their final exam will take 60 or 80 minutes, they are not to allow students without testing accommodations to work longer than the reported time (which would require proportionately longer accommodated testing).
• Final examinations, whether in an on-campus or an online course, must be given during the one-week period set aside by the University for this purpose; likewise, final examinations must be given at the time and in the location specified on the Registrar's Exam Schedules page. 
  • Instructors may not informally reschedule final exams to other times during finals week or during the last week of class meetings. 
  • Instructors may not change the modality of a final exam, for an entire class or for individual students, after the exam schedule is published. That is, instructors may not change in-person exams to online or online exams to in-person for an entire class or for individual students.
  • Please note the scheduling exception for final examinations in off-cycle courses; in these courses that also end at the fall or spring "close of classes" date,  any exam considered a final exam must be given during the last week of classes. (For more information, see the Off-Cycle Courses Offered Fall or Spring). 
• No major assignments may be scheduled with deadlines during the last week of a course when that course also includes a final examination. 
  • This policy applies to both in-person and online courses. 
  • Major assignments are defined as comprising more than 10 percent of a student’s overall grade in a course.
  • Non-major assignments (e.g., readings, reading quizzes, discussion posts, and low-stakes assignments) may be scheduled with deadlines in the final week of classes even when the course also includes a final examination.

For courses that do NOT include final exams:

• In courses where papers, projects, presentations, or other types of assignments constitute the last evaluation activity and there is no final examination, instructors may use either the last week of classes or the scheduled final exam period as the due date for the final assignment. They may not use both the last week of classes and the final exam period as due dates for two major assignments.
• Instructors may also request a final examination time and room to use for student presentations or similar final assignments. Instructors are encouraged not to request a final examination time and room unless the final assignment requires the whole class to meet, however. For example, final examination times should not be used for meetings with individual students, or for submission times/deadlines for students’ completed work (including take-home final examinations).
• Information on the use of the final examination period should be included on the syllabus. Although the final exam schedule is not completed by the Registrar until around the fifth week of the semester, instructors should still include in the syllabus how they intend to use that time and a reminder to students not to plan travel until the exam date and time is announced. After publication, students may access their final exam schedule in MyUI. CLAS also encourages instructors to announce details of final exams in class and on ICON after they are published.

Final exam scheduling adjustments for individual students

Absence from final exams

Disruptions of final exams