<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side one <&>0:10 right um thank you um apologies er dave smith er couldn't come that's due to the change of the date of the meeting and we've had the message from thomas any others? <,,> um minutes of the last meeting people agree for <.>li kindly done for us by <,,> jenny um <,> any corrections they seem perfectly good minutes to me thank you very much so they're confirmed <,,> um the next item is four workloads and assessment um that draft report of the academic committee that we <&>1:00 had to report on um i sent you all a copy of <,> voc the draft of what we'd come up with in our discussion and the only response i got i think was from thomas who suggested um <&>sighs now i have to find my final copy so that i can tell you um one change well it wasn't really a change it was just he made a point which i incorporated somewhat lazily as an extra point rather than trying to rewrite the whole thing er so i er apart from minor changes in wording i added a note general at the end pointing out that our point about um <,,><&>3 the overlap of activity between the registry and the workloads and assessment committee needing to be addressed <{><[>needed <[>er needing <{1><[1>to be addressed it was actually five three john on our on the original draft as it were <,> er yeah <{2><[2>er our point six one which for those who haven't got that with them um about um the workload implications of whatever it was they were suggesting i've forgotten now and er SEVEN one <,> er about the need that this committee would have <.>f or such a committee would have for extra help if we were to take on extra tasks er really er were related points well thomas suggested that they were so i just put our responses to these come together if areas of overlap could be cut back and if we were to have more clerical slash technical assistance we could probably increase our usefulness to the faculty on questions of policy that was you know something that <.>no so i mean i think thomas' point was a good one so i just added it if you'd like um john i'll give <&>3:00 <.>it you can copy it from here that <{3><[3>would really do it sufficently <,,> so that's gone um i don't think that's going to be discussed at faculty it think that'll just be forwarded to academic committee by the look of it <[1>needing <&>2:00 <[2>yeah <[3>yes mhm um people content with that? <,> um the examination statistics work you'll see that i advertised for a research assistant and we've now um as it were <.>appoi well we have appointed um somebody her name is sunita <&>spells name rajan <&>spells name and um she has just done a master of well m m s at massey what is that? laughs <,,> <{><[>laughs <[>management management science? science <{1><[1>i think yes yes and she has voc er <.>a <.>a and a project that she did for that er was actually a survey of um where <.>o of the qualifications of people leaving university and what they did so in other words she's got quite a lot of experience at at handling er statistics and interpreting them and er she actually gave me er she's <.>tr turning her project into smaller publications for a range of professional journals she's selecting from what she's done the information relevant to that profession and er writing up um you know to getting publications that way um and so she gave me a copy of something that she's just published in a <.>mag magazine called new zealand engineering so i thought i'd just pass it round just gives you a sense of sunita i suppose um and she's as keen as mustard so i have the feeling that er once she gets going it will be extremely interesting that she will be <&>5:00 very very um good and er we might be able to er to find out a lot through her but um at the moment um we've just sort of been held up by problems like we've got she would like to be working with <.>th <.>we we've got a hard copy of the examination statistics will we want to get that on disk well i've got that underway somebody's going to <.>get but that's just what has to be complicated doesn't it but eventually she <{2><[2>will get it on disk it's on disk but getting it <[1>yeah <&>4:00 <[2>she will get it to you getting it's hard yeah yeah is is hard but er and then she might have to put it into a different form so that she can manipulate it and so forth but but there's all this happening so it'll be <,> <&>sighs perhaps a week before she's actually settled down starting working on our first questions er but er maybe um at our next meeting depending on where we're at i could bring her to the meeting and we could talk with her i think we're very lucky to get her for this <,> so that's my report on that <.>i'm i want to <.>r as somebody suggested <&>6:00 i think was it craig that i should talk to <.>cr to um the u t d c about what we're doing well i <{><[>suggested word <[>was that you pete right right <.>so and i must do that and i sort have made a couple of feeble attempts with the telephone and not succeeded but i'm going to do that i thought i'd take sunita as well mm yeah yeah um any sorry this is a meeting with just me droning on as a monologue not much good you might as well send them <{1><[1>all away and i'll just <{2><[2>sort of do it into that if you like laughs <&>general laughter <[1>laughs <[2>mm you do it so well rachel <&>general laughter oh dear item six loss of preparation time you know there's this new provision er in the instructions to examiners has anybody here actually got experience of it have you jack? the departments you have bought <{><[>yeah <[>um had i was grading one oh one exams and a lot of them had little envelopes attached to them in which the <{1><[1>person made an application <{2><[2>to the course coordinator louise i wasn't coordinating the course so she was dealing with it <[1>mm <[2>yeah <&>7:00 yeah yeah <{1><[1>i had the same experience with the shakespeare <{2><[2>course <[1>word i've had a girl <[2>yeah yeah it didn't actually seem to make much difference to our marking in the end we didn't consider the um er loss of preparation time until we'd done the marking and er it didn't seem to affect <{1><[1>with results in the least <{2><[2>in fact <[1>yeah <[2>yeah well the story is that um kelly simpson asked me if we would survey um people's reactions to loss of preparation time <.>as so that we got faculty's reaction um i think it's one of these cases that <.>so i got her to send out an email message to chairpersons and i've received some feedback but um at the same time somebody sent me a thing saying well since i've already sent all this feedback to jenny chatswood i'll just summarise it for you and i thought aha laughs so i spoke to jenny who said yes she was <&>8:00 conducting a major whole university survey of the whole issue and er i began to wonder really whether there was much point in our spending a lot of time on it <,> er and said that i would we would discuss it here today and that i would forward to her er any any anything <.>th that we had on it but um i'm afraid that i myself am not really very au fait with it because i haven't had to handle i wasn't doing any midyear examining so i haven't had to handle the whole issue but um tut i did bring out bring some things for you er darn it oh if i can find them i think um in the second half i've been getting with internal tests yes i've been getting er medical certificates for loss of preparation time for the internal assessment <{><[>word so <.>th that is what we hadn't experienced in the first half but now i'm i'm getting that in the second half <[>oh really? so people will hand in an essay but say i <&>9:00 didn't have enough time to do it properly well <.>wi well this is for i <.>h i have in my course two er slide tests oh tests <{><[>aha <[>and so for those i've been getting them not for essays essays people just get extensions and that sort of thing with their excuses for whatever reason <{><[>word <[>right so it's exactly analogous isn't it <{><[>to an end of year exam <[>yes it is yes yes yeah um what i thought you might like to see um <,> if you haven't already is the form that the student has to fill in so shall i pass that round in fact i think you can keep er these <,,><&>3 and what else do you need to know um <,> er the the statement in instructions to examiners if i can find it yes loss of preparation time page <&>10:00 fifty seven to fifty eight <,,><&>3 um just says that students are now permitted to report quote report loss of preparation time before registry conducted examinations but now they're doing it for the <{><[>internals as well <[>mm so we'll have to mention this this'll be of interest to them i think which may be taken into account by departments in awarding grades b students will report on a standard form preparation time is three weeks one form for each exam must be submitted to the examinations supervisor form will be forwarded to the course coordinator in a confidential envelope students are asked to take into account the circumstances reported um er <.>g er and consultation with a health professional doesn't automatically entitle you to an adjustment to the grade so if anybody wants to <.>l look at that well when you got this internally did was that formal or was it just some <{><[>informal thing that students do <[>no <.>i all right i i should perhaps qualify it i DID not get THIS form mm <&>11:00 but <{><[>they approached me <[>no but they were yeah with medical <{1><[1>certification as to having been ill the week <{2><[2>before or a <.>peri yes it is <{3><[3>a logical extension from it yes <[1>yeah yeah <[2>and it's a logical <[3>outcome of this isn't it the students are interpreting the the policy right <{><[>logically <[>but they didn't have but there is no <{><[>policy <[>but <{1><[1>there's no policy <{2><[2>right <[1>word one <[2>in terms of our assessment <{><[>word <[>internal is it entirely up to the department um it does seem to me yeah well you know what my opinion is i guess er what i've got back <&>sighs um i just sent out this email message just said um <,> chairpersons are asked to that that there's been some concern over the possibility that students could have identical applications treated differently by different departments this was the concern that kelly simpson passed on to me and it may be that faculty will want to establish a faculty policy chairpersons are asked to report the experience of their departments along with any concerns well all i've had um er is some messages from people saying thank GOD we didn't <&>12:00 have any all laugh so i've got some of those and all of the others say it made no difference at all to the grade they gave <,,> er and a couple of people have said it's TERRIBLY vague and it's about time it was er made less vague so that that's really the the extent of the feedback that i've had how could they possibly expect anybody to to interpret this in any way at all given what it is i mean how can they expect consistency's just going to arise by some process of osmosis from this well personally i think the whole idea is absolutely <{1><[1>stupid and i've got no sympathy <.>what with it whatsoever so it's TERRIBLY hard for me to put my mind to it because i think it's philosophically unsound <{2><[2>as as as an idea <[1>course <[2>i mean if the student is <{><[>ill then presumably you know if they're ill enough then they fall under the other regulations which we've always had i mean <.>tha but that's only when they're ill during the exams <[>coughs for the <{><[>exams <[>mm mm <&>13:00 well the problem for me is um is that voc is that we cannot voc the university university teachers cannot um intervene between fate and a student mm you know we cannot if if fate strikes a student down with glandular fever we can't say how unfair we'll give them their degree anyway because the <{1><[1>degree says something about what they've done which would not be true and <.>tha this i mean sorry this is perhaps an <{2><[2>extreme way of putting it but this is this is my worry about the whole thing i sort <.>o have always felt comfortable with aegrotats because the idea behind that is that the person has got everything under their belt that they should have but some but they couldn't front up for the exam er <,> er voc but the idea that the student has not prepared but because it wasn't their fault we don't mind bothers me considerably <,> course we don't mind and we don't judge the student for it but we cannot <.>a be god <&>14:00 <[1>mm <[2>clears throat it just says may be taken into account <{1><[1>it it doesn't even say it should be or has to be taken into <{2><[2>account <,> maybe someone should tell the students to stop wasting their time if nobody's <{3><[3>actually doing this stuff marking things <{4><[4>then they're losing more preparation <{5><[5>time word <[1>yeah <[2>no <[3>laughs <[4>well it's <[5>well i think <,,> at least in i think in our <{1><[1>department in a way our <{2><[2>experience was that we did consider it but what happened was that when we compared the results with their other results their internal results or whatever there really was no no noticeable difference there was nothing to take <{3><[3>into account <[1>clears throat <[2>mm <[3>yeah mm <{><[>mm <[>and that so that it didn't look like even with a loss of preparation time <{><[>the the there had been a loss of of result <[>yeah <{><[>yes that seems to have been everyone's experience i mean maybe it's selecting out that very anxious kind of student that never feels they've done enough <[>mm mm mhm <&>15:00 and is <.>that <{1><[1>often a very <{2><[2>good student i don't know <{3><[3>do you have a <.>f a feeling about this sonia i feel i'm i shouldn't really be sounding off on it <[1>mm <[2>coughs <[3>mm laughs um i don't know i don't really i haven't really thought about it much mm yeah i mean i feel i'm just er my position is obviously really i shouldn't even mention it because it's almost as it were been er tut <,,><&>3 voc the the academic committee has decided to have a policy on this <{1><[1>so um they've decided that that they're not worried by the kind of point that i'm trying to make <,> er and so perhaps i <.>sh i should be trying to put my mind to how it can be turned into a good workable system but it's very hard if you don't have any sympathy with the basic principle <{2><[2>laughs <[1>mm <[2>mm mm mm well why did they do this in the first place do you not have any <{><[>idea <[>no <.>i <{><[>well what have i got here it was a review of aegrotat policy <.>c um conducted in nineteen ninety three under the auspices of the academic committee <&>16:08 <[>clears throat <&>16:00