To whom it may concern, We, students, acknowledge the hard work that the University has been doing throughout this pandemic to support us however we believe it is not sufficient. We do not want to bring down the image of the University at all, but we believe 24-hour open book examinations are the way forward.

Firstly, the University of Southampton is a global university that has students from across the world. Not all students will have access to the internet, with Covid making it more difficult to access computers and the internet in public places like libraries. This means that internet access may not be guaranteed, and this issue can be serious turbulence to students. A 24-hour assessment will ensure that students have satisfactory time should they have internet access issues, technical issues, glitches, or errors.

 Many students are not in a position to come back to University due to the lockdown announcement recently. This means that students' mental health is at risk, with a lack of space in homes, noisy environments where parents and siblings are all at home working or studying. It Is not always possible for students to avoid noise disruptions; with a timed exam, this can cause a lot of stress and result in underperformance. A 24-hour open book exam will ensure that students have enough time to sit these exams.

Not forgetting students studying subjects such as Law that have only one assessment per module without any coursework, meaning that they have only 24-48 hours to complete numerous essays which contribute to 100% of their grades. This will be very stressful, and these timed essays should be extended to a week deadline instead to ensure that all students can produce work to the highest of their abilities.

Semester 2 exams 2020 were first introduced to be no detriment and exams were not timed. This worked, this same scheme should be implemented as the situation of Covid has not improved, in fact, gotten worse. With cases increases meaning that anxiety in students increases living with fear. We would also like to mention that we felt robbed as at first, we were informed that summer assessments were no detriment then after submitting out work, students were told that these assessments made no contribution to their final results. We felt robbed after spending a large amount of time and sweat in stressful environments. All our hard work went down the drain. A no detriment policy as discussed at first would have prevented a lot of anxiety for students. As you may be aware .the number of ambulances that have been called to unis for suicide and self-harm this term is already over half of the last years academic years. We don't want more students to be in this position. The university at least should be giving us a option for a no detriment policy.

To the staff of the University of Southampton, please feel assured that I and my fellow students are not here to challenge or diminish the positive image of our successful university. We have created this petition page to ensure that all students, from all courses and across the world are not disadvantaged. We would like a large time frame to complete our assessments during this global pandemic.  We would like to ensure that this does not have any negative impacts on our future professions. Many other universities such as the University of Queen Mary, UCL has given students 24 hours to complete their exams.

By signing this petition we are asking for the introduction of a safety net policy, previously instated in order to bring fairer results for students this year. Also, giving students who already do not have 24-hour exams and an extension to those doing essays.

Lastly, students have complete faith that the best possible decision for our wellbeing and education will be taken.