Comments made on exam scripts

The request was successful.

Dear Imperial College London,

According to the Data Protection Act 1998, I would like to ask for clarification on the availability of comments made on exam scripts to students.

In particular, I would like to obtain data of the number of students requesting to view comments made by examiners, in the past year, and in the past 5 years.

"Students are not entitled to see the exam scripts of other students. Exam scripts are considered personal information about the individual student who wrote the script and are covered by the Data Protection Act 1998.

Under the Data Protection Act students are entitled to see information that the University holds about them unless an exemption applies. The Data Protection Act provides an exemption for exam scripts but not for any comments that are made on the script. This means that the law entitles students to access to the comments on the exam scripts (whether written on the script or attached on a piece of paper) but not the scripts themselves."

I would like to therefore enquire the official policy of the college on access of exam scripts and comments, and if the existing regulations are in breach of the DPA 1998.

Yours faithfully, 
Kelvin Cheng

IMPFOI, Imperial College London

Dear Mr Cheng

This is to acknowledge receipt of your request below, made under the Freedom of Information Act. The College aims to respond to your request within twenty working days of receipt of your request.

We will contact you again in due course.

Kind regards,

Catherine Harpham

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IMPFOI, Imperial College London

Dear Mr Cheng

Thank you for your recent Freedom of Information request. Please find below the College's response to your questions.

"clarification on the availability of comments made on exam scripts to students.

In particular, I would like to obtain data of the number of students requesting to view comments made by examiners, in the past year, and in the past 5 years."

2013: 8 requests
2014: 7 requests
2015: 5 requests
2016: 3 requests
2017: 6 requests

"the official policy of the college on access of exam scripts and comments, and if the existing regulations are in breach of the DPA 1998."

Information about access to examination scripts and comments is available on the College's website: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services...

Paragraph 9 of Schedule 7 of the Data Protection Act (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/199...) covers examination scripts specifically. It states that "Personal data consisting of information recorded by candidates during an academic, professional or other examination are exempt from section 7 [the Right of Access to Personal Data]."

For this reason, the exam scripts themselves are not required to be provided under the Data Protection Act. There is no such exemption for the examiner comments and this is why these are available when making a Subject Access Request.

The College's procedures are therefore fully compliant with the Data Protection Act.

I am obliged, under the Freedom of Information Act, to inform you of our complaints procedures in case you are unhappy about the way in which your request has been dealt with. If you wish to complain about this response, you should contact the College Secretary at the address below.

The College Secretary
Imperial College London
Exhibition Road
London
SW7 2AZ
E-mail: [email address]

If you are unhappy about the way in which the College Secretary handles your complaint then you may have recourse to the official regulator for the Freedom of Information Act who is:

The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
http://www.ico.gov.uk

Kind regards,

Catherine Harpham

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Dear IMPFOI,

Thank you for the information, and also thank you for taking the time and effort to respond to this request.

Yours sincerely,

Kelvin Cheng