In the early 1990s Senate endorsed a policy that would ensure that final examination question papers used in a course would normally be made available to students for reference purposes.
The goal was to ensure that all students had equal access to final exams administered in earlier versions of their courses. In practice, exams from the previous academic year are published in October on the Exambank.
The release of exam question papers also encourages good practice in terms of academic integrity by encouraging instructors to construct new exam questions in subsequent offerings of the same course.
While exams should normally be released to the Exambank, exceptions to the Senate policy may be granted under rare and occasional circumstances. Exams designated as “confidential” will never be released to the Exambank. If confidential exam status is approved, instructors are obliged to provide students with sample study questions.If your exam contains the following, it may be considered for confidential status:
- exam questions are taken from copyrighted test banks
- multiple choice exam formats are being used for very large classes
- limited material is available for testing (e.g. anatomy, physiology), and a limited pool of exam questions exist
As of Fall 2019, instructors no longer need to seek approval each term to have their exams treated confidentially. Upon initial approval, the course will be included on the Faculty of Arts and Science's Confidential Exam master list. The approval will apply to all future iterations of the course, until the Faculty Office is notified by the department that the exam no longer needs to be confidential. Please contact the Academic Operations Manager in the Faculty office for inquiries about whether a course is on the Confidential Exam master list.
Deadlines
New requests for confidential exams must be made to the Associate Dean (Academic) by the following dates:
| Exam Period | Date |
|---|
| December Exam Period | October 1 |
| April Exam Period | February 1 |
| June Exam Period | May 1 |
| July Exam Period | June 1 |
Procedures
Please contact the Faculty Office for inquiries about whether a course is on the Confidential Exam master list.
Where confidential status is appropriate for an exam that has not previously been approved, the instructor will fill out a Confidential Exam Request Form and forward it to the Faculty Office by the deadlines noted above.
- For new requests, the Associate Dean (Academic) will respond by e-mail within 10 days of receipt of the form.
- The Associate Deans (Academic) will provide the Office of the University Registrar (OUR) with a list of approved courses.
- The OUR will stamp the exam papers “Confidential”.
- The OUR will arrange for the collection of exam papers at the end of the exam.
- The OUR will return confidential exam papers to instructors. Copies of all other exam papers will be held in the OUR (and remain temporarily confidential) until they are released to the Exambank in October of the following academic session.
Please note: In every semester that a previously approved confidential exam is run, the instructor will need to indicate on the exam request webform, sent by the exams office, that an exam should be treated confidentially.
