Computer science students may have to resit exam after lecturer uploads answers online

Students allege that lecturer was made aware of the mistake a fortnight before the exam

NEWS

Students in the school of computer science and statistics may have to resit their software engineering examination, after it emerged that the lecturer in charge of that module had uploaded the solutions to the exam two weeks prior.

Students visiting the lecturer website for resources and practice exam papers saw that answers had been uploaded to the site which did not match any of the example papers which featured.

Computer science, computer science & business and computer science & language students sat the exam, along with students in management sciences and information systems studies.

Speaking to Trinity News, one student in the course said that originally, they were unaware that these were the answers to the exam. “Nobody realised those were the exam solutions, they thought they were the wrong solutions for a sample paper he had given us so nobody really looked at them.

“[The lecturer] had been notified two weeks ago that he had uploaded the ‘wrong solution’ to the sample paper he had given us”, said the student.

“Instead of basically making a simple phone call and having the back up exam be used instead, he just took down the solutions and didn’t tell anyone.

“We’re going to have to resit the exams because he wasn’t bothered doing anything about an administrative error.”

In response to an inquiry from Trinity News, Dr Michael Brady said “the lecturer prepared an examination paper with sample solutions, as required by our quality processes.

“Additionally, the lecturer prepared sample examination papers for the students and made those available. At some point a number of weeks ago, students sought sample solutions to the sample paper but were inadvertently given sample solutions to the real examination.”

“While discrepancies were noticed by some students between the sample solutions and the questions in the sample paper, the true significance of this did not become apparent until the examination paper was seen yesterday. It was brought to our notice by student representatives late yesterday.

We are very grateful for their prompt action.”

Though no official decision has been made on whether the exam will have to be repeated, Dr Brady said that “students can be assured that we will do our very best to minimise any inconvenience.”

He added “we really regret this incident and offer our apologies to the students affected.”

5/5/16, 11:46 am – Updated to acknowledge other students who sat the exam

Matthew Mulligan

Matthew is Editor for the 62nd volume of Trinity News. He is a Sociology and Social Policy graduate and was previously Deputy Editor of tn2 Magazine.