Common Exam Request Form

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Common Exam Request Form

The Common Exam Request Form is used by staff members who are academic schedulers for the purpose of requesting a common exam for a specific course with multiple class sections in a given academic term. Authorization by the School/Unit is required as indicated by the Chair's signature. An academic scheduler must email the signed and completed form to scheduling@registrar.gatech.edu for the request to be processed.

Common Exams are a component of a scheduled lecture course that occurs only three to five times per semester such that multiple sections of a given course all may take the same exam simultaneously. Common Exams count as effort for the associated lecture course. As such, for each instance of common exam held over the course of the semester, one regular lecture must be omitted to balance the overall contact time.

Common exams are scheduled for between 50-75 minutes in duration in time blocks designated by the Office of the Registrar, adhering to approved meeting patterns.

Guidelines for Offering and Scheduling a Common Exam

  • Departments must obtain advanced approval from the Office of the Registrar to hold Common Exams. Those with approval will have a designation added to the catalog for that course number indicating Common Exam.
  • Common Exams must be scheduled separately from the main lecture using Linking where appropriate. After Registrar approval, a new schedule type (Common Exam) will be added to the catalog approval for that course number allowing for linking. Basic instructions on linking are available in the Schedule of Classes Training Manual and the Academic Scheduling team will provide detailed instructions on how to link exams at the time of approval, if applicable.
  • The day/time slot must be chosen from the approved meeting patterns and approved by the Office of the Registrar before scheduling the common exam. The Academic Scheduling team must balance the common exam schedule to reduce the likelihood that students will have conflicts among approved common exams and retains final approval on the day/time.