Formal complaints on the examination
If you have taken an exam and believe that a mistake has been made that has affected your performance or the grading of it, you can file a complaint about formal errors. This could, for example, be errors in the exam questions or the conditions in the examination room.
Main content
What should be included in the appeal?
The complaint must include the background for the complaint, the specific error that you believe has affected your performance in the exam or its assessment. You must include what you want to be corrected, the course code, the exam date, the exam format, and the your contact information. You send the complaint to post@uib.no.
What happens after I have filed the complaint?
The faculty is the first instance for complaints about formal errors. The faculty will gather relevant information about the situation you are complaining about, for example, from the examination room, the teaching staff, the department, the examiner, etc. Once the faculty has established a solid basis for the case, they will assess whether a formal error has occurred that affected your performance in the exam or the grading of your answers. If the faculty determines that this is the case, your complaint will be upheld.
If the faculty determines that no error has occurred, the faculty will forward the case to the Central Appeals Committee at UiB (University of Bergen). The covering letter will describe the case and the faculty's assessment. All documents related to the case will be attached (including the complaint and any other documents in the case), and the complainant will receive a copy of the letter with attachments. The Appeals Board will review the case and decide to either uphold or reject the complaint.
What happens if my complaint is upheld or if the complaint is rejected?
Both the faculty and the Central Appeals Committee at UiB can uphold your complaint if they determine that an error has occurred. The outcome depends on what needs to be done to rectify the error. If your complaint is upheld, it can be resolved either through re-grading (if relevant and possible) or by conducting a new exam that you can choose to take. In both cases, the grade will be invalidated, meaning that you will have no result or credits in the subject until the new grading or exam has been completed.
The outcome of an upheld complaint is never that the examiner gives a more lenient assessment of the exam or test due to procedural errors. The examiner can only evaluate the actual exam answers that are available and not what you could have achieved if the error had not occurred.
If the complaint is rejected, there will be neither a new exam nor re-grading for the person who filed the complaint.
Regulations
Provision 11-9 in the Act relating to universities and university colleges deals with procedural errors in connection with examinations.
Do you have any questions?
If you have questions, please contact your faculty:
Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design: eksamen.kmd@uib.no.
Faculty of Humanities: studierettleiar@hf.uib.no.
Faculty of Law: klagesensur.jurfa@uib.no.
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences: studie.matnat@uib.no.
Faculty of Medicine: UiBhjelp
Faculty of Psychology: eksamen.psyfa@uib.no.
Faculty of Social Sciences: studieveileder.svfa@uib.no.
Withdrawal of complaint
A complaint about formal errors can be withdrawn if no decision has been made in the case. Reasons for wanting to withdraw a complaint could be, for example, that the formal issue you complained about did not actually affect your performance, or it was taken into account when reading the examiner's guidelines. To withdraw the complaint, you can send an email to post@uib.no requesting that the case be closed because you no longer wish to maintain the complaint. You must provide your name, course code, and specify that you are withdrawing the complaint about a formal error in the exam in the email.
