Across many areas within the University of Glasgow, exam times have been reduced from double time to standard rated time + 30 minutes.

This petition is to gather support from the impacted students, to demonstrate the scale and severity of the concerns to the University at senior levels. Please pledge your support if you feel that just 30 minutes is extra is unfair and insufficient, and that there should be at least an hour extra. 

Note that this petition is for spreading among student cohorts impacted by these changes only and not wider student body dissemination.

There are several major issues with this decision. Firstly, it was approved in June 2021, yet it was not communicated until 8th November 2021, causing uncertainty and anxiety among students and staff. It would seem many staff were unaware and thus may have created exams thinking there was double time. 

Assuming exams have been created for two hours, 30 minutes is still insufficient to upload files. Scanning must take place, and this window leaves room for no error, or technical issues, or any other disruptions that can occur in an uncontrolled environment. The pandemic continues to impact everyone in many ways. With up to 5 submissions, this can be six minutes per submission. 

Other Russel Group universities have at least one hour of extra time for submission, such as The University of Edinburgh (https://www.ed.ac.uk/timetabling-examinations/exams/exams-faq Although lockdowns are over, there are continuing impacts. Even in a perfect environment with no impacts, 30 minutes is extremely tight and not enough to scan, upload, and submit. Good Cause can be used here but a Wi-Fi or laptop glitch, or some other disruption that can occur in the uncontrollable setting, can easily happen. Having the risk of using Good Cause and not knowing the outcome is extremely stressful and should only be used for emergencies, not basic technical issues which are bound to occur, and which there is foresight of, in a large volume.

The university itself states, for last session, that double time was provided in acknowledgement of the continuing pandemic impacts, including technical issues for example. These impacts have not substantially changed. Students with disabilities, last diet, were given extra time on top of the double time too. This shows that double time was not just a blanket solution for extra time for students with disabilities. It should be noted that with the current proposals, students with disabilities will be given their appropriate extra time in addition to the thirty minutes.