REPLY: We are building on the experiences with the Exam Hall
Of course, it's a huge shame that the exam hall hasn’t lived up to everyone's expectations, but it’s important that we get feedback from the students, as this is the only way we can improve the exam experience. This is what Anna Bak Maigaard, deputy director of AU Student Administration and Services, and Nikolaj Høncke Keldorff, team leader of the Educational Administrative Systems Management, write in their response to the criticism of the exam house from the Student Council's chair Daniel Hjort.
This is an opinion piece, the views expressed in the column are the writer’s own.
The Student Council's chair, Daniel Hjort, writes in Omnibus that conditions for students with certain disabilities aren’t good enough in Aarhus University's new exam hall in Lisbjerg.
OPINION: AU's new exam hall is a concrete box that only accommodates the strongest students
Of course, it is a huge shame that the exam hall hasn’t lived up to everyone's expectations, but on the other hand, it’s important that we hear from the students, as this is the only way we can improve the exam experience.
That's why we involved the Student Council and the Counselling and Support Centre, among others, when we were designing the building. That way, we could work together to try to accommodate the many different needs that may arise at a university with around 35,000 students sitting more than 160,000 exams each year.
The exam hall must be able to accommodate all students at AU
In connection with the development of the hall, it was a clear goal for us it's able to accommodate all students at AU – including students with disabilities and those in need of special exam conditions. The Exam Hall therefore includes individual exam rooms, as well as shielded spaces for students who have special exam conditions The number of single rooms has been determined on the basis of statistics on dispensation and exams from previous years.
Our preliminary assessment is that the Exam Hall is sufficiently flexible to accommodate the different needs of the students. But we can always learn more, and we are happy to listen to the students' feedback about the facilities, layout and framework for the holding of the exams.
Thorough evaluation in August-September
Because we want to improve, we will conduct a thorough evaluation of AU Exam Hall in August–September, incorporating student feedback as well as experiences regarding arrangements for students with dispensation. The Student Council will also be involved in this.
Based on the evaluation, we will make ongoing improvements to the setup, as far as possible. We probably can’t solve all problems, but we are doing our best to solve the ones we can and, above all, we want constructive dialogue.
This text is machine translated and post-edited by Cecillia Jensen.