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Frequently asked questions about examinations and assessments

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Before the examination

  • If you still have an old exam registration, please contact the respective chair associated with this exam
  • If you no longer have an old examination registration in the campus portal, please contact the Examinations Office

In case of illness, you should obtain a medical certificate before or – at the latest! – on the exam date. If your inability to take the exam due to illness was determined prior to the start of the exam, you do not require an official medical certificate from the 'Amtsarzt'. If is, however, important, that your certificate specifically state that you are unable to sit an examination (''Prüfungsunfähigkeit'). While we do not need the exact diagnosis, we need to know in what way you are prevented from attending the examination, e.g. whether your condition would deteriorate if you attended the exam or if you are bedridden. Submit the corresponding application for inability to take an examination due to illness to the Examinations Office immediately. You can find this under "Information for all degree programmes" under "Illness, inability to take examinations".

If a medical certificate is submitted for an exam, you have to sit the examination at the next possible date, i.e. the next time the examination is offered. This does not, however, apply in the case of semesters on leave due to illness, semesters abroad, and if you hand in another medical certificate due to prolonged illness. Be sure to submit a deadline extension request to the Examinations Office.

Please send the application to the Examinations Office together with any supporting documents (medical certificates, disability pass etc.) as proof of impairment. The documentation should clearly identify the nature, duration and severity of your condition and a recommendation for suitable compensatory measures.

It is important that you submit your application as early as possible in your degree programme, but you must submit it before the exam registration deadline. This ensures that we can make the necessary arrangements when organising the examinations.

The chairperson of the Board of Examiners has final say over the approval of applications for access arrangements. This process usually takes up to three weeks. We will notify you in writing whether or not your application has been approved.

You should register during the semester in which you intend to sit the exam.

  • Centrally organised examinations of all faculties: the dates can be found on the website of the Examinations Office.
  • Decentrally organised examinations: dates can be found on Stud.ip or on the respective pages of the chairs

Registration usually takes place via the campus portal. Examinations must be registered for within the announced, mandatory registration deadline! Information on the registration deadlines can be found on the pages of the Examinations Office.

Exceptions:

  • Exchange students if registration via the campus portal is not possible
  • Voluntary additional courses that are not included in the module catalogue
  • Seminar achievements in the Faculty of Economics, the Faculty of Computer Science and Mathematics and the Faculty of Law

For these, you should enquire and register at the relevant Chair.

You can find instructions on how to register and deregister for examinations on the EXA Management website.

If you have missed the examination registration period, it is only possible to register for examinations retrospectively in exceptional cases (e.g. with a hardship application). If this applies to you, please contact the Examinations Office.

Additional assessments completed during your programme must be registered via HISQIS, just like all other assessments. The assessments to be included in the final grade are specified when you request your certificates at the end of the degree programme. The additional assessments are shown in a separate certificate.

No, registration is a prerequisite.
Please note: Exceptions can be found in the answer to the question ‘Where and how do I register for the exams'?

You can find the exact exam withdrawal deadline on the Examination Office webpages. Until that date you can simply withdraw your exam registration in HISQIS. Withdrawals after this date will only be accepted if you have a pressing reason for withdrawal; you will need to furnish proof of this before you can withdraw form the exam.

As a rule, the study and examination regulations provide for a resit opportunity within one year.
If the failed examination is not offered within one year, you have to submit a request for deadline extension to the Examinations Office.

Many degree programmes allow for two resit attempts for each examination. In others, on the other hand, you only have one resit attempt. Whether you are granted a second resit attempt is then often dependent on your having passed other examinations. This must be requested from the Examinations Office. For details, please consult the study and examination regulations for your degree programme.

Only failed examinations may be repeated during the semester of leave.

You cannot repeat the examinations that you failed in the first attempt in the above-mentioned semesters in the semester of leave, as it is not possible to take them for the first time in the semester of leave.

In order to ensure your protection as a pregnant or breastfeeding student and your (unborn) child, the University of Passau is obliged to take measures to make it as easy as possible for you to balance pregnancy and maternity with your degree studies. In order for the University of Passau to be able to fulfil its duties, it is necessary for you to register with the Equal Opportunities Section.

There you will also find out everything you need to know about taking examinations during the maternity protection period.

During the exam

A valid CampusCard for students (orange colour) with a photo is sufficient for identification. If you have a grey CampusCard or a replacement card or a card without a photograph, you must present another form of official photographic ID, such as your identity card (European Union citizens only) or passport, as well as a current certificate of enrolment.

If you suddenly become ill during an exam, you should contact an invigilator immediately. You will then receive a document with which you must immediately visit the doctor. If it was not apparent at the beginning of the examination that an illness was occurring, the inability to take the examination is approved.

Submit the corresponding application for inability to take an examination due to illness to the Examinations Office immediately. You can find this under "Information for all degree programmes" under "Illness, inability to take examinations".

For exams of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Information Systems the permitted examination aids are listed on the Examinations Office website. For other examinations, you should enquire at the relevant Chair.

After the examination

As a general rule, you can authorise a person to carry out the inspection on your behalf. In this case, the authorisation must be brought along with a copy of your identity card for inspection.

  • for centrally organised examinations: the examination office will make a reservation for the next date
  • for decentrally organised examinations: an alternative date must be arranged directly with the respective examiner

The resit examination must take place within one year, unless it can be substituted for by a different examination. The examiner decides whether a resit is offered. There is no obligation to offer a resit exam.

If it is a compulsory assessment in your degree programme, you will usually lose your examination entitlement and be de-registered from the programme. Since the study and examination regulations contain divergent provisions on this matter, you should contact the Examinations Officer for your degree programme in good time.
Optionally, you can take up another, perhaps related, degree programme and have the credits earned for your first degree programme transferred.

After viewing your exam, you can promptly submit a substantiated request for correction. To do so, please contact the relevant administrative assistant for your degree programme in the Examinations Office.

Please note that there may be deadlines for appeals or legal remedies to be observed if your study regulations and examination regulations provide for them for the exam in question.

Fill out the grade improvement form. This can be found on the pages of the Examinations Office under ‘General information’. Hand the form in to the Examinations Office during the registration period. The accompanying information sheet on grade improvement also tells you how many examinations you can repeat in your degree programme to improve your grade.

This procedure also applies to examinations at the Language Centre.

The number of examinations that can be improved is specified in the respective (subject) examination regulations. You can find an overview of this in the information sheet on grade improvement.

You cannot resit examinations in which you have attained a pass mark in degree programmes of the Faculty of Computer Science and Mathematics.

The better mark out of the two is counted, and you cannot voluntarily resit the passed exam again.

Registration for inspection is as follows:

  • for centrally organised examinations of all faculties: Registration via Stud.ip, inspection at the examinations office
  • for decentrally organised examinations: Registration and inspection directly with the respective examiner

Contact person

You can find more information on the various (subject) examination regulations on the respective page of the Examinations Office.

Information on crediting and upgrading can be found on the general Information page.

In general, you can use the HISQIS examination codes as a reference: if these are identical in the old and new degree programmes, it will likely be approved. If the assessments/modules are not identical, you must obtain a signature (for approval) from the module/course lecturer. For the degree programmes of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Information Systems, the Examinations Officer for your degree programme will obtain the signature on your behalf. In either event, you should also submit a formal request for approval Examinations Office to your degree programme.

If the courses you have attended are included in the module plan of your degree programme, you can present the certificates of attendance to the Examinations Office and have them credited. You may collect a certificate (the so-called KompetenzPAss) listing all seminars completed at Zukunft: Karriere und Kompetenzen from the centre itself.

Free trials, maximum duration of study and other effects of the Covid 19 pandemic on examinations

With regard to the standard dates and deadlines specified in the examination regulations applicable to degree programmes in accordance with Art. 84 para. 2 sentence 1 and for universities of applied sciences, the summer semester 2020, the winter semester 2020/2021, the summer semester 2021 and the winter semester 2021/2022 do not count as semesters. (Art. 130 para. 1 BayHIG) Thus, regular dates and deadlines have been postponed. Please check whether the affected semesters have been excluded from your maximum duration of study. For regular dates and deadlines, please refer to the  examination regulations applicable to your degree.

You do not need separate applications and proof. These deadlines may have been automatically extended or will continue to be taken into account when calculating the maximum duration of studies. From the summer semester 2022, the review of the maximum duration of studies will be resumed.

What does that mean for you?

  • You are regularly enrolled in a degree programme but have not (by a long way) reached the maximum duration of your studies or another deadline? The 2020 summer semester, the 2020/21 winter semester, the 2021 summer semester and the 2021/22 winter semester will not be counted when checking the maximum duration of your studies.
  • You were on leave during the semester mentioned above? Vacation semesters have no influence on your course of study and are not considered as corona semesters.
  • Are you studying to become a teacher? The Bavarian Ministry of Culture has announced special regulations for the first state examination on its website.
  • Are you studying law at the University of Passau? The automatic extension when the examination deadlines or the maximum length of study are reached also applies to the intermediate legal examination and the university law examination.

If you have any further questions, please contact the person responsible for your course of study.

In the summer semester 2020, winter semester 2020/2021 and in the winter semester 21/22, the University of Passau decided on free attempt regulations in the Corona statutes, i.e. examinations that were not taken or not passed in these semesters were not counted ("free examination attempt"). Please note that there were no free attempt regulations for the 2021 summer semester.

  • The free attempt regulation did not apply if an attempt at cheating or plagiarism was determined. In these cases, the test is considered failed.
  •  The regulation did not apply to passed exams or final theses.
  • The regulation did not apply to the law university examination.

Dissertation/thesis

First you should discuss the project with a person who has the authority to conduct examinations. Then you should register for a topic. Once this has been agreed, you should submit a Dissertation/Thesis Registration Form. This must be signed by the person with the authority to conduct examinations and submitted to the Examinations Office. All copies of your dissertation/thesis must be submitted to the Examinations Office. You will be notified of your dissertation/thesis mark via Campus Portal.

You must be enrolled as a regular student (i.e. not on leave) in your degree programme when you register for your dissertation/thesis, while you are writing it and on the day of submission.

Yes. The postmark then counts as the submission date. Please send your dissertation/thesis to the following address:

University of Passau
Examinations Office
Dissertation/thesis for [write the name of your degree programme here]
Innstr. 41
94032 Passau
Germany

If the submission date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or a public holiday (for the State of Bavaria), the submission date is automatically moved to the next working day.

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