UKÄ's (Swedish Higher Education Authority) guidance on fair examination

The Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ) has compiled all the rules that apply to summative assessement in the guide to fair examination Links to an external site. (The full report is only available in Swedish Links to an external site.). It is incredibly valuable for the examiner to have a reference book when needed. However, it is over 120 pages, so reading it from cover to cover takes time. Below is a summary of the most important parts of the guide that the examiner needs to know. Detailed explanations of the points below are given in the booklet.

• The Swedish Higher Education Authority wishes to emphasise the need for higher education institutions (HEI) to formulate clear rules in course syllabuses for examination that create the predictability which is fundamental for students’ legal rights
• The HEI determine the design of the examination. Through clear course syllabuses and grading criteria, higher education institutions can clarify the conditions under which examinations take place. Grading criteria often set out the requirements that students must meet for the different grades in the examination. UKÄ would like to emphasise that clear grading criteria are also important for students' legal rights.
• An examiner is obliged to act objectively and impartially when handling grading cases. If there is some special circumstance that may diminish
  trust in the examiner’s impartiality in the case, he or she is disqualified and may not handle the case. 
• It may be of value for both students and teachers that assessment of written tests occur without knowledge of the test-taker’s identity. Due to regulations regarding conflict of interest, examiners must know the names of test-takers at some point in the process.
• Well-founded suspicions of cheating  should be reported to the university president.
• The examiner may not pass a student solely on the grounds of the student’s test being lost. Nor may an examiner, due to lack of time, for example, pass students who never completed the examination.
• For the HEI to make an exception from the instructions in the course syllabus regarding required components and provide an opportunity for replacement assignments, the relevant syllabus must provide support for these measures.
• If the HEI judges that a grading decision will be substantially delayed, the HEI is to inform the student about the delay and explain why.
• If other teachers help with the assessment of a test, then they have participated in the final processing of the grading case and their names also must be included in the grading decision.
• If registration of a grade in the Ladok student registry will take place only after the student has been informed of the grading decision, it should take no more than one week to register the grade.
• If a grading decision contains an obvious inaccuracy due to a written error, calculation error or similar oversight, the decision may be corrected by the examiner, whether to the advantage or disadvantage of the student. Corrections to the disadvantage of a student must be made with extreme caution and only when the error is obvious. Before such a correction is made, the student should normally be given the opportunity to comment.
• The examiner is obligated to change an obviously incorrect grade if it can be done quickly, easily, and without lowering the grade.
• It is possible to change a grading decision when a student has cheated on a test. There is also some flexibility for changing a grade to the advantage of a student, i.e. by raising a grade. Extreme care should still be taken when changing grades. For the examination to be fair, it is crucial that the examiners assess similar cases identically.
• A grade of pass may not be changed to a grade of fail by request of the student
• There should be no rules or praxis which entail that a student who has picked up his or her test automatically loses his or her right to request a
  review. Nor is it permitted to set time limitations for when students must request a review at the latest.
• Clearly expressed grading criteria are important for oral exams. The ability to reconsider the grading decision of an oral exam is facilitated if the HEI documents the oral exam.
• When setting a grade for a take-home examination, the examiner may consider whether the student has submitted the assignment within
  the given timeframe. The syllabus should, however, state what the consequences will be if a take-home exam is not submitted on time.
• Group exams are an allowed examination format. However, it is important for students to be able to be individually assessed. There are different ways to ensure this is possible.