Types and scope
There are two types of guidelines:
- Generic grading guidelines are independent of specific exams and semesters, may apply to multiple semesters or for multiple courses, and are particularly relevant for courses where students in the same semester answer individual examinations
- Specific grading guidelines are associated with a particular exam, and are particularly relevant for courses where students in the same semester answer the same examinations
These types can be combined with a generic section that is linked to, for example, formal requirements that apply over several semesters, for example, and a specific section linked to the academic content of the examination for a specific semester.
Grading guidelines should be concise, but complete. Half a page can be enough for generic guidelines, while specific guidelines, for example in the form of an answer key, may easily cover several pages.
Structure
The drafts of specific grading guidelines are made by the person who drafts the examination.
Generic guidelines are made by the teachers/those responsible for the course for which the generic guidelines apply.
Grading guidelines will be in Norwegian. Courses in English have grading guidelines in English.
All grading guidelines shall be evaluated by others, in most cases by the same people who carry out quality assurance of the text of exam question papers.
Immediately after the exam, and prior to distribution to examiners, specific grading guidelines may be amended based on situations that first became apparent afterwards, e.g. during teacher visits on the exam day or in (a selection of) written answers.
Grading guidelines should generally be uploaded to Inspera.
The Head of Department must ensure that the Department has experience exchange fora where the academic staff, together with students, can discuss the grading guidelines and how fundamental problems (e.g. arising from appeals) should be handled in the future. Generic guidelines for courses that are comparable between educational institutions can be discussed in National Academic Council meetings.
Target group and purpose
Grading guidelines should be written so that they also can be used by others than the course responsible who wrote it
- other examiners, including appeals examiners
- the exam candidates and/or other students
The purpose of the guidelines for examiners is:
- to enable examiners to make an assessment and be able to justify the assessment based on the same criteria
- to update the examiners in the subject area of the examination question papers
- to help students to understand the grade they have been given based on their performance
- to help students to assess whether they have grounds for lodging an appeal
- to be used as an educational tool when reviewing previous examination question papers for teaching purposes
Contents
The following elements should be considered when writing grading guidelines:
Initially, grading guidelines can provide information on practical aspects that are important when assessing an answer, such as:
- the correlation with the learning outcome
- the focus of the subject
- syllabus coverage, i.e. how the syllabus covers the subject of the examination question paper
- weighting between the different parts of the examination, question paper and what the examiner should do when not all parts have been answered
- general principles of assessment
- emphasis on independence, reasoning ability, originality and interesting perspectives. Here one must consider the examination support material that the candidates have had at their disposal.
- requirements to wording, reference technique and orderly presentation and the extent to which these should count
- the relationship between specific requirements and discretion and overall rating in the assessment
The grading guidelines may
- provide brief information about the teaching
- update the examiners in the subject area
- explain what the written answers should include, preferably at different levels, i.e. what is expected of an average answer and what is expected of a good answer. Based on experience, exact descriptions of what is required to achieve each particular grade, will be difficult for the examiner to follow up. If one can think of unfortunate ways of answering the examination, then these can also be mentioned.
- say something about the use of the syllabus, and the extent to which candidates must demonstrate knowledge of this in their answer paper (this is particularly relevant for home exams). It can state where in the syllabus the examiner finds what the student should know to be able to answer the examination question paper.
- Inform about the formal requirements for the answer paper, length, limitations imposed on the candidates e.g. in the choice of material/individual syllabus
- comment on the different interpretations of the exam question paper that you have become aware of (for example, during teacher visits on the exam day or first review of the answers) if you see that the question paper is ambiguous.
Publication
Grading guidelines should usually be publicly available and published on our website, preferably in the same place as the exam paper, i.e. under the heading Examination in the course descriptions. Generic grading guidelines may always be available, whereas the specific ones are made public after the exam and at the latest when exam results are available.
The exception is when there is a limited number of relevant exam questions which will be reused at certain intervals between semesters. In this case the grading guidelines do not need to be published, but exam candidates must have access to them by requesting them or by being able to read them at the enquiries office. The time during which this is possible may be restricted to the expiry of the deadline for lodging an appeal.