Recently, many universities around the UK have informed students that they are "going online" with teaching and examinations. For online exams, this is never going to be realistic, practical nor fair, for three main reasons:

1) The exams are never going to be practical nor logistical at all. It would be very easy to cheat on online exams in many different ways, even with an external system like Microsoft online exams. And what about international students in different time zones? Would a 9AM exam have to be done at 4AM? What about people without any internet or even a PC?

2) Many people will not want to be recorded via a webcam (many don't even have webcams), nor would it be that effective at preventing cheating. How are staff going to review many hundreds of hours of footage? What if the internet cuts out? What happens if you suspect 'cheating' of some sort? Where do you draw the line? What about toilet breaks? There are too many variables, making it impossible.

3) Online exams simply will not work for students that need to write out lots of maths and/or diagrams. It would be very difficult to avoid this problem entirely, just by altering the questions asked. We've been told latex isn't even a requirement for the courses.

I propose swapping term 3 of the current year, with term 1 of the next year. As for finalists, they could sit their exams at a postponed date (in July/August, which would be more controlled), or they could be given some sort of alternative (i.e. a grade prediction).