Common Hour Exam Request Form

Common hour exams are final exams that are typically offered for courses with multiple sections so that they are able to have all students enrolled in the course, regardless of meeting times for specific sections, complete the final exam at the same time. If approved, common hour exams apply to all sections of the course in a term.

• The below petition should also identify the terms when the course is offered rather than the impacted sections.
• Some courses are only offered in specific terms while others are offered every term.
• The justification for the request should include the positive impacts of the proposed change.
• In the past department have cited the need to prevent students from one section passing information about the exam on to others in later sections and avoiding space conflicts with co-registered sections.
• Others have cited a need to allow the instructors to grade the exams together and ensure consistency across sections of a given level.

Important note: The department offering a common hour exam must offer alternate examinations to students with conflicts.

Requests for all common hour exams must be made to the registrar the first week of February for fall semester final examinations and the first week of September for spring semester final examinations. There is no exception to this deadline. Instructors of Common Hour Exam courses assume responsibility for making special arrangements to give the examination to any student who has a schedule conflict as a result of the combined exams.

Use this request form to initiate the creation of a permanent Common Hour Exam for a UNC-Chapel Hill course.

The Office of the University Registrar is required to post the official final exam schedule before registration begins for the term. As a courtesy to the faculty we try to get the official final exam schedule up as early as month before. However, several factors can delay an early posting including Common Hour Exam requests, faculty requests, and the campus review process among others.

(Policy approved by Faculty Council effective Fall 2017)